FMNK-J-SCOTT 


PORTRAITURES 


JULIUS     G\ESAR 


PORTRAITURES 


OF 


JULIUS     CAESAR 

A   MONOGRAPH 

BY 

FRANK    JESUP   SCOTT 


LONGMANS,    GREEN,    AND    CO. 

91  AND  93  FIFTH  AVENUE,  NEW  YORK 

LONDON  AND  BOMBAY 

1903 


COPYRIGHT,  1902, 
BY  FRANK  J.   SCOTT. 


XormooO  13rrss 

J.  S.  Gushing  &  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith 
Norwood  Mass.  U.S.A. 


To  my  Wife,  whose  hearty  interest  in  this  work  has  made 
it  a  happy  joint  labour: 

And  to  Sculptors  of  the  Present  and  the  Future,  who  may 
study  to  embody  the  living  expression,  spirit,  and  genius  of 
Julius  Ccesar,  this  Monograph  is  respectfully  inscribed  by  the 
Author. 


CONTENTS 
CHAPTER  I 

PAGE 

INTRODUCTORY  :    DATA  OF  JUDGMENT  OF  PORTRAITS  .         .         1 

CHAPTER   II 
A  BRIEF  OF  C.ESAR'S  LIFE 19 

CHAPTER   III 

ANCIENT    STATUES    KNOWN    IN    THE    TIME    OF   AUGUSTUS   AND 

BUSTS  SURMISED 54 

CHAPTER   IV 
WHY  ANTIQUE  BUSTS  OF  JULIUS  C.ESAR  ARE  RARE  ...       64 

CHAPTER  V 
PORTRAITS  FROM  LIFE  OR  POSTHUMOUS  WORKS          ...      68 

CHAPTER  VI 
A  PROCESSION  OF  PORTRAITS        ...  ...      75 


viii  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER   VI  —  Continued 

PAGE 

ITALY,  NAPLES  « 80 

ROME .  .  .82 

FLORENCE 109 

PISA  .  .  .  .  114 

PARMA  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  115 

BOLOGNA  .* 117 

MANTUA,  VENICE    ........  118 

TURIN  . 119 

GERMANY,  BERLIN  .  • 123 

DRESDEN 126 

MUNICH 129 

COLOGNE  .  ^  .  ...  130 

FRANCE,  PARIS 132 

LYONS 150 

AVIGNON,  BESANCON 151 

SPAIN,  MADRID 153 

SEVILLA 159 

ENGLAND  AND  SCOTLAND 163 

LONDON  .  - 164 

RUSSIA,  ST.  PETERSBURG 176 

THE  UNITED  STATES 178 

APPENDIX        .                                   .  185 


LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 

FULL-PAGE   PLATES   AND  INSET-ENGRAVINGS 

Vignette.     Julius  Caesar  in  Youth.     An  ideal  by  the  author      .        Frontispiece 

PLATE  PAGE 

I.     Colossal  Marble  Head  of  Julius  Caesar,  in  the  Museum  of 

Naples 1 

II.     Coins  bearing  Julius  Caesar's  Effigy,  in  the  Museum  of  Naples       11 

III.  Coins  bearing  Julius  Caesar's  Effigy,  in  the  Cabinet  of  Coins 

and  Medallions,  Paris 13 

Vignette.     Ideal  Head  of  Julius  Caesar,  after  Ingres,  Paris     .       18 

IV.  Head  of  Julius  Caesar  in  the  Vatican,  Rome :  Chiaramonti 

Gallery,  No.  107.     Front  view 19 

V.     Head  of  Marius,  the  Vatican,  Rome 21 

VI.     Head  of  Sylla,  the  Vatican,  Rome 23 

VII.     Bust  of  Cicero,  Capitoline  Museum,  Rome        ....       25 
VIII.     Head   of   Pompey,  from  the   statue   in   the   Spada   Palace, 
Home.      (Reproduced    from    the    engraving    in   "Julius 
Caesar,"  by  W.   W.   Fowler,  by  permission   of    Messrs. 

Putnams.) 30 

IX.     Statue  of  Julius  Caesar,  of  the  Court  of  the  Capitoline,  Rome. 

Side  view 54 

X.     Bust  of  Julius  Caesar  as  Pontifex  Maximus,  the  Vatican, 

Chiaramonti  Gallery,  Rome .64 

XL     Colossal  Bust  of  Caesar,  Paris  Exposition,  1900        ...      68 
Vignette.     Ideal  of  Caesar,  from  a  French  painting         .        .      74 
XII.     Casts  from    Celebrated    Busts   seen   in   Perspective  in   the 

Author's  Studio 75 

INSET-ENGRAVING 

Fig.  1.   Profile  of  the  Colossal  Head  of  Julius  Caesar,  of  the 
Museum  of  Naples 80 


LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 


INSET-ENGRAVING 


XIII.  Head  of  the   Statue  of  Julius  Caesar,  in  the  Court  of  the 

Capitoline,  Rome          ........  83 

XIV.  Capitoline  Statue.     Front  view 84 

Fig.    2.   Head  of  Same  in  Profile 83 

Fig.    3.   Profile  of  Caesar  Head,  in  Corridor  of  Conservatori 

Museum,  Capitoline,  Rome 86 

Fig.  4.  Caesar  Bust,  Hall  of  the  Emperors,  Conservatori 

Museum,  Rome     .........  87 

XV.  Bust  of  Julius  Caesar,  Hall  of  Busts,  No.  282,  the  Vatican, 

Rome  . 88 

Fig.  5.  Profile  of  the  Same 88 

XVI.  Bust  of  Julius  Caesar,  Chiaramonti  Gallery,  Xo.  107,  the 

Vatican,  Rome.  Side  view 90 

Fig.  6.  Bust  in  Portico  of  Villa  Borghese,  Rome  ...  94 

Fig.  7.  Bust  in  Main  Hall,  Villa  Borghese,  Rome  .  .  95 

Fig.  8.  Bronze  Bust  of  the  Ludivisi  Collection,  Rome  .  .  96 

XVII.  Bust  of  Julius  Caesar  in  the  Corsini  Palace,  Rome  .  .  .  100 

Fig.  9.  Antique  "  Old  Roman,"  Corridor,  Corsini  Gallery  .  101 

Fig.  10.  Marble  Head  in  Doria  Gallery,  Rome  .  .  .  102 

Fig.  11.  Garden  Bust,  Villa  Mattei-Hoffman,  Rome  .  .  103 
Fig.  12.  Bust  of  Julius  Caesar,  Borghese  Palace,  Hall  "  Mario 

dei  Fiore,"  Rome 104 

XVIII.  Antique  Caesar  Bust,  National  Museum  (Baths  of  Diocletian), 

Rome 105 

Fig.  13.  Profile  of  the  Same 105 

Fig.  14.  Profile  of  the  Same 106 

Fig.  15.  Profile  of  the  Bronze  Head  of  Julius  Caesar,  of  the 

Uffizi  Museum,  Florence 109 

Fig.  16.  Profile  of  the  Marble  Head  of  Julius  Caesar,  Uffizi 

Museum,  Florence 110 

XIX.  Marble  Head  of  Julius  Caesar  in  the  "  Tresoria,"  Pitti  Palace, 

Florence Ill 

Fig.  17.  Profile  of  the  Same •  .  112 

Fig.  18.  Profile  of  Bust,  of  Pallazo  Ricardo  .  .  .  .113 
XX.  Head  of  Julius  Caesar,  of  the  Campo  Santo,  Pisa  .  .  .114 

Fig.  19.  Same  Head,  front  view 114 

Fig.  20.  Same  Head,  in  profile 115 


LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 


XI 


PLATE 

XXI. 


INSET-ENGRAVING 


XXII. 
XXIII. 
XXIV. 

XXV. 


XXVI. 
XXVII. 


XXVIII. 
XXIX. 

XXX. 
XXXI. 


Bust  of    Julius   Caesar  (half-life-size),   of    the   Museum    of 

Antiquities,  Parma 116 

Fig.  21.  Profile  View  of  the  Same  .  " 116 

Fig.  22.  Head  of  Julius  Caesar,  in  the  Antique  Museum,  Turin  119 
Fig.  23.  On  Left,  same  as  Fig.  22.  On  Right,  same  as  Plate 

XXII 120 

Marble  "Mask"  of  Julius  Caesar,  Museum  of  Antiquities, 

Turin 121 

Marble  Bust  of  Julius  Caesar,  Royal  Museum  of  Berlin  .  .  123 

Fig.  24.  Profile  of  the  Same 123 

Statue  of  Julius  Caesar,  Royal  Museum  of  Berlin  .  .  .124 

Fig.  25.  Profile  of  the  Same 124 

Basalt  Bust,  of  the  Royal  Museum  of  Berlin  ....  126 

Fig.  26.  Profile  of  the  Same 125 

Fig.  27.  Half-life-size  Marble  Bust  of  Julius  Caesar,  Alberti- 

num  Gallery,  Dresden .  .  . 127 

Fig.  28.  Life-size  Marble  Bust,  same  Gallery.  Front  view  .  128 

Fig.  29.  Profile  of  the  Same 129 

Bust  of  Julius  Caesar,  Walraff  Museum,  Cologne  .  .  .  130 

Fig.  30.  Profile  of  the  Same 130 

Basalt  Bust  of  Julius  Caesar,  St.  Cloud,  France  .  .  .  133 

Fig.  31.  Profile  of  the  Same 133 

Fig.  32.  Toga  Statue  of  Julius  Caesar,  Louvre,  Paris  .  .  136 

Fig.  33.  Head  of  the  Statue,  "  Mars,"  Louvre,  Paris  .  .  137 

Fig.  34.  Head  labelled  "Jules  Cesar,"  Louvre,  Paris  .  .  139 

Fig.  35.  Head  in  Gallerie  Mollien,  Louvre,  Paris  .  .  .  140 

Statue  of  "  Hermes  "  or  Julius  Caesar,  Louvre,  Paris  .  .  141 

Fig.  36.  Head  only  of  Same 142 

Bronze  Head  of  Julius  Caesar,  in  the  Cabinet  des  Mcdailles, 

Paris 144 

Fig.  37.  Profile  Sketch  of  Same 144 

Profile  from  Cast  of  Same 146 

Fig.  38.  Profile  Sketch  of  Antique  Bronze,  Museum  of  Douai  147 

Fig.  39.  Photograph  of  Same 148 

Fig.  40.  Bronze  Statuette  of  Julius  Caesar,  Besan9on  .  .152 

Porphyry  Bust  from  Herculaneum,  Royal  Palace,  Madrid  .  153 

Fig.  41.  Marble  Bust  of  Julius  Caesar,  Prado  Museum,  Madrid  155 


Xll 


LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 


INSET-ENGRAVING 


Fig.  42.   Mai'ble  Bust  of  Julius  Caesar,  Prado  Museum,  Madrid  156 
Fig.  43.    Small  Bronze  Bust,  in  a  Cabinet  of  the  Bibliotheca 

Nacionale,  Madrid .  157 

Fig.  44.    Small  Bronze  Bust,  Julius  Caesar,  same  Cabinet         .  158 

XXXII.     Columns  of  the  Alemnda  fie  Hercules,  Sevilla,  Spain         .         .  159 

Fig.  45.   Marble  Bust,  Casa  de  Pilatos,  Sevilla,  Spain       .         .  161 

XXXIII.  Head  of  Julius  Caesar,  Roman  Gallery,  British  Museum          .  164 
Fig.  46.   Profile  of  the  Same 164 

XXXIV.  Gems  from  the  British  Museum,  enlarged        ....  170 

Fig.  47.   Caesar  Coins,  from  the  Same 170 

Fig.  48.    Head  of  Caesar,  South  Kensington  Museum       .         .  171 

XXXV.     Statue  of  a  Roman  in  the  Act  of  Sacrificing.     A  cast  from 

the  Vatican,  Sydenham,  Gallery  of  Casts    ....  173 

XXXVI.     Head  of  Julius  Caesar,  Museum  of  Antiquities,  Edinburgh      .  175 

Fig.  49.   Bust  owned  by  General  Abbott,  Cambridge,  Mass.  .  179 
XXXVII.    Vignette.     An  Ideal  of  Caesar.     "  Nearing  the  End,"  by  the 

author  .  183 


ERRATA 

Page  85,  fourth  line  from  bottom.  The  plates  (PI.  IX  and 
PI.  XIV)  facing  pages  19  and  83  should  read  facing 
pages  54  and  84. 

Page  89,  second  line  of  "  No.  6."  Plate  XVI  opposite  should 
read  facing  page  90. 

Page  107,  fourth  line  from  bottom.  Plate  XIX  should  read 
Plate  XVIII. 

Page  108,  last  line  of  first  paragraph,  (our  No.  63)  should 
read  (our  No. .  65). 

Page  112,  fifth  line  from  bottom,  page  plate  opposite  should 
read  page  plate  XIX. 

Page  121,  line  2,  for  Plate  No.  XXI  read  Plate  No.  XXII. 


xii  LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 

PLATE  1N8ET-ENGKAVING  PAGE 

Fig.  42.   Marble  Bust  of  Julius  Caesar,  Prado  Museum,  Madrid     156 


PLATE  I 


COLOSSAL  BUST  OF  JULIUS  C.SSAR,  OF  THE  MUSEUM  OF  NAPLES 


CHAPTER  I 

INTRODUCTORY  :  DATA  OF  JUDGMENT  OF  PORTRAITS 

ONE  needs  make  no  apology  for  admiration  of  great 
men,  whether  they  lived  thousands  of  years  ago,  or  now 
influence  the  affairs  of  living  nations.  A  man  who  made 
so  great  a  mark  upon  ages  far  remote  that  the  recorded 
facts  of  his  career  still  reverberate  through  the  halls  of 
knowledge,  and  take  on  greater  sound  and  significance 
the  more  they  are  known,  is  the  man  we  may  be  very 
sure  is  worth  studying.  Reading  the  biographies  of  such 
men  has  a  perpetual  fascination  for  us,  so  that;'  ii£JtUe.r 
the  narrowness  of  provincial  conceit,  nor  —  whatsis,  vvery 
like  it  —  of  national  pride,  can  smother  or  much '  abate1 
our  appreciation;  though  the  great  ones  be  of  nations  or 
races  quite  alien  to  our  own,  and  thousands  of  years  in 
their  ashes.  Confucius,  Moses,  Rameses,  Homer,  Gautama, 
Solon,  Plato,  Archimedes,  Alexander  the  Great,  Demos- 
thenes, Julius  Caesar,  Christ,  Charlemagne,  Michael  Angelo, 
Columbus,  Francis  Bacon,  Shakespeare,  Peter  the  Great, 
Martin  Luther,  Newton,  Voltaire,  Franklin,  Washington, 
Mirabeau,  Napoleon,  Garibaldi,  Thiers,  Victor  Hugo, 

i 


2          PORTRAITURES    OF   JULIUS    CAESAR 

Bismarck,  Darwin,  Lincoln,  and  a  thousand  others  perhaps 
equally  illustrious,  scattered  through  all  periods  of  historic 
time,  derive  very  little  additional  interest  from  their  near- 
ness to,  or  remoteness  from,  our  own  time.  Each  has  his 
special  halo,  and  in  general  it  beams  with  so  wide  a 
light  that  it  must  be  a  blinded  mind  that  does  not  see 
in  each  life  named  something  that  has  influenced  the 
human  race  on  every  side  with  an  undying  influence. 
Curiosity  prompts  every  wide-awake  mind  to  know  more 
and  more  of  such  men.  How  they  lived,  moved,  and 
worked  in  their  own  times,  what  they  did,  how  they 
did  it,  how  they  looked,  what  people  about  them  said  of 
them,  if  they  were  powerful  or  conspicuous;  or  how,  if 
unknown  and  unappreciated  in  their  lives,  their  influence 
became  great  only  as  the  intelligence  of  succeeding  ages 
enabled  men  to  understand  them,  —  all  these  things  make 
the  biographies  of  great  men  at  once  the  most  fascinating 
and  the  most  instructive  of  reading.  If  the  historical 
fcogrtiplUes  concerning  the  great  things  they  did  contain 
also  facts 'and  incidents  from  which  we  learn  their  merely 

«***,«»»  U 

-"personal 'and  commonplace  peculiarities  and  habits,  these 
give  a  greatly  added  zest  to  our  interest.  Even  their 
faults  and  their  foibles  to  some  minds  furnish  the  most 
piquant  part  of  the  biography ;  since  they  satisfy  the 
vanity  of  the  humblest  reader  by  leaving  in  his  mind  the 
assurance  that  every  great  man  was  in  some  way  just 
like  himself. 

In   ancient    times    sculptures    in    stone    and    casts    in 
bronze  were   the    most    approved    means   to   preserve   the 


INTRODUCTORY  3 

likenesses  of  men  of  distinction.  Those  fine  arts  only 
reached  great  perfection  in  portraiture  in  the  prosperous 
era  of  Greece,  though  some  approximation  to  good  sculp- 
tural portraiture  is  found  in  previous  Assyrian  and  Egyp- 
tian civilization.  How  early  painting  may  have  been 
used  with  skill  and  power  to  accurately  portray  distin- 
guished people  it  is  hard  to  determine,  since  the  lesser 
durability  and  resistance  of  paint  on  plaster  walls,  or  on 
wood  and  canvas,  leaves  us  only  guess-work  as  to  what 
may  have  been  done  earlier  than  that  era  of  the  Roman 
Empire  when  the  paintings  of  Pompeii  and  Herculaneum 
were  buried ;  that  is  to  say,  painting  as  it  was  practised  in 
the  reigns  of  the  first  Roman  emperors.  Those  paintings, 
preserved  through  eighteen  hundred  years  without  blemish, 
prove  that  in  the  delineation  of  graces  of  form,  and  plays 
of  the  imagination  concerning  the  gods  and  goddesses  of 
their  mythology,  as  well  as  in  the  technique  of  painting, 
the  artists  of  that  day  had  little  to  learn  from  later  times. 
But  in  portraits  of  their  contemporaries,  no  matter  how 
famous,  those  painters  have  left  us  but  the  smallest  evi- 
dences of  then*  skill ;  so  that  we  may  fairly  infer  that 
the  art  of  sculpture  which  developed  so  marvellously  in 
Greece  many  centuries  before,  and  immortalized  in  stone 
so  many  of  her  citizens  whose  deeds  were  also  commemo- 
rated in  her  literature,  was  the  only  art  by  which  life-like 
portraits  have  been  preserved. 

Long  before,  in  India,  Assyria,  Persia,  and  Egypt,  it  is 
true  that  profile  portraits  were  cut  with  exquisite  art 
in  gems,  and  by  the  Etruscans  before  Rome  was ;  but 


4          PORTRAITURES    OF   JULIUS   C^SAR 

these  can  rarely  be  so  perfect  as  portraits  of  larger  size. 
Yet,  in  connection  with,  the  preserved  coins  of  all  ages, 
they  furnish  a  vast  mass  of  histrionic  study  in  modern 
museums. 

It  was  perhaps  about  a  thousand  years  after  Christ 
that  out  of  the  barbarism  of  the  feudal  ages  the  nebulae 
of  the  fine  arts  began  to  glow  here  and  there  in  the  cities 
of  Europe.  Religious  subjects  claimed  right  of  way,  but, 
in  a  few  centuries  after,  the  pencils  that  were  particu- 
larly deft  in  the  delineation  of  holy  virgins,  saints,  and 
muscular  deities,  were  not  less  perfect  in  portraiture ;  so 
that  in  the  fifteenth  century  the  very  highest  level  of 
perfection  was  reached  in  Italy.  Whoever  had  great 
rank,  money,  or  other  cause  of  celebrity,  had  no  reason 
to  be  omitted  from  such  immortality  as  the  painters  and 
sculptors  of  Italy  could  make  for  them.  The  arts  of 
engraving  followed ;  then  printing.  At  last,  in  our  own 
age,  the  Daguerrian  and  photographic  arts  enable  all  men 
women  and  children  to  be  kept  in  remembrance  so  long 
as  they  are  esteemed  enough  to  have  their  pictures  pre- 
served from  fire  and  the  waste-basket.  Many  have  an 
ephemeral  life  in  alburns  and  newspapers ;  a  smaller 
number  in  good  magazines ;  a  still  smaller  number  in 
books  that  may  be  permanent;  and  of  the  latter  a 
selected  few  become  the  survivals  of  the  fittest,  and 
candidates  for  positions  among  the  immortals.  Each  cen- 
tury sees  a  dropping  out  of  a  considerable  part,  so  that 
the  names  which  remain  on  the  roll  of  fame  two  thou- 
sand years  after  they  lived  do  not  require  the  folios  of 


INTRODUCTORY  5 

the  modern  biographical  dictionary  to  contain  them.  It 
will  be  a  puzzle  to  the  antiquarians  of  two  thousand 
years  hence,  recovering  beautifully  executed  heads  in 
marble  or  bronze  of  very  interesting  looking  men,  to 
decide  whether  they  were  nobodies  in  history,  or  if  they 
may  represent  some  of  the  names  whose  work  has  been 
immortalized  in  literature.  In  the  days  when  Greece 
was  the  light  of  the  world,  all  of  her  great  men  were 
done  in  marble,  and  well  done.  In  Rome,  afterwards, 
they  were  as  generally  done,  but,  I  think,  not  quite  so 
well  done.  As  Rome  overgrew  Greece  all  the  fine  arts 
became  its  glory  also.  For  a  few  centuries  before  and 
after  Julius  Caesar,  nearly  every  citizen  who  acquired 
reputation  or  notoriety  in  Rome  was  likely  to  be  well 
or  badly  portraited  by  some  sculptor.  Those  who  were 
very  prominent  in  public  affairs,  especially  if  they  were 
rich,  were  likely  to  find  good  artists ;  but  this  general 
rule  was  as  likely  to  have  had  exceptions  then  as  now. 
Distinguished  sculptors  sometimes  make  bad  work  in  por- 
traiture ;  and  some  periods  do  not  develop  great  artists. 
Of  most  Greek  and  Roman  celebrities  there  remain  many 
good  likenesses,  while  of  Chinese,  Indian,  Egyptian,  and 
Assyrian  few,  very  few,  portraitures  are  found,  though 
great  men  doubtless  existed  in  as  great  proportion  among 
those  nations  as  among  those  who  learned  to  crystallize 
them  in  stone  or  to  embalm  them  in  literature. 

Julius  Caesar,  born  one  hundred  years  before  Christ, 
is  distinguished  apart  from  all  the  other  great  names  of 
antiquity  in  being  recognized  as  standing  on  the  dividing 


6          PORTRAITURES    OF   JULIUS   CESAR 

line  between  the  antique  and  the  modern  world.  Anthony 
Trollope  declares  that  his  Commentaries  are  the  beginning  of 
modern  history.  He  rnay  be  said,  figuratively,  to  have 
set  his  heel  on  the  old  forms  of  government,  and  to  have 
blazed  the  way  for  something  new  and  untried,  based  on 
popular  suffrage,  guarded  by  a  sufficient  central  power. 
He  is  among  those  extraordinary  men  of  all  time  who 
not  only  came  into  life  on  a  high  plane,  but  was  endowed 
to  adorn  that  level.  He  was  born  great,  educated  to  be 
great,  had  lofty  ambitions  to  be  useful  to  his  country,  as 
well  as  to  be  powerful  in  it,  and  worked  with  unflagging 
resolution  to  effect  reforms  in  many  ways.  His  personal 
presence  seems  to  have  been  one  to  attract  attention,  to 
make  friends,  and  to  make  enemies.  He  was  early  so 
conspicuous  in  Rome  that  before  he  had  attained  middle 
age  he  had  filled  every  grade  of  Roman  civil  service,  and 
had  been  elected  to  the  highest  religious  office.  Naturally 
we  might  expect  such  a  man  to  be  produced  in  marble 
by  the  sculptors  even  before  his  military  career  began. 
Afterwards,  when  military  glory  the  most  remarkable  had 
placed  him  at  the  summit  of  human  power,  we  know  by 
the  literature  of  his  day,  as  we  shall  show  further  on, 
that  his  statues  were  set  up  in  nearly  every  city  on  the 
shores  of  the  Mediterranean  Sea.  Though  himself  never 
either  king  or  emperor  in  Rome,  his  name  became  more 
illustrious  in  its  history  than  that  of  any  king,  consul,  or 
general  who  preceded  him,  and  greater  than  any  of  the 
long  line  of  historic  emperors  who  followed  him.  Two 
thousand  years  have  passed  since  he  was  the  world's 


INTRODUCTORY  7 

greatest  actor,  and  at  the  end  of  those  twenty  centuries 
he  grows  greater  and  not  less,  as  the  erudition  of  im- 
partial historians  of  our  own  time,  delving  more  ex- 
haustively than  ever  before  into  the  literary  records  of 
his  period,  reveal  that  his  life  was  like  a  broad  beam  of 
light  thrown  across  the  murky  atmosphere  of  a  semi- 
barbarous  world.  They  show  him  to  have  been  the  great- 
est executive  reformer  of  all  Roman  history,  as  Christ 
was  soon  after  the  greatest  moral  reformer  for  all  man- 
kind. In  the  opinion  of  Mommsen,  the  Nestor  of  living 
German  historians,  he  was  the  greatest  man  of  all  history. 
This  opinion  is  shared  by  most  distinguished  English 
and  French  historians  of  our  time. 

What  more  natural  than  to  expect  that  the  city  in 
which  this  man  was  born,  lived,  and  became  head  of  all 
things,  would  even  at  the  end  of  two  thousand  years 
have  busts  and  statues  of  him,  which,  like  those  that  have 
come  down  to  us  of  Demosthenes  and  Seneca,  would  give 
us  a  similar  assurance,  an  instinctive  sense, of  life-likeness. 
It  is  not  so.  Spending  a  second  winter  in  Rome  in 
1896-7,  visiting  again  its  multitudinous  art  collections,  I 
kept  an  eye  out  particularly  for  antique  originals  of  Julius 
Caesar.  At  the  same  time  I  frequented  the  art  sales- 
rooms to  find  a  reduced  bronze  copy  of  some  authentic 
original.  I  found  none.  Several  shop-worn,  life-size 
marble  heads  were  found,  which  the  salesmen  were  ready 
to  offer  for  his.  On  inquiry  as  to  where  the  originals 
were  to  be  seen,  information  was  lacking.  It  seemed  a 
habit  of  mind  among  some  dealers  in  copies  of  antique 


8          PORTRAITURES    OF   JULIUS   C^SAR 

heads  to  consider  certain  busts  of  Roman  emperors  a  sort 
of  interchangeable  stock  from  which  the  one  desired 
might  be  produced,  provided  the  purchaser  had  no  clear 
conception  of  the  features  of  the  one  inquired  for.  This 
uncertainty  among  dealers  in  Rome  concerning  authentic 
busts  of  the  great  Julius  piqued  and  stimulated  curiosity. 
There  floated  in  my  memory  reminiscences  of  engravings 
of  Caesar  that  I  had  seen  many  years  before,  and  a  more 
vivid  remembrance  of  a  few  busts  and  statues  recently 
seen.  Of  the  busts,  that  of  the  British  Museum  was  one, 
and  the  colossal  marble  head  of  the  Naples  Museum  was 
the  other.  The  statues  were  two  on  the  floor  of  the 
gallery  of  the  Roman  emperors  of  the  Louvre,  Paris, 
(utterly  dissimilar)  and  the  statue  of  the  Court  of  the  Con- 
servatori  of  the  Capitoline  Hill,  Rome.  From  seeing  either 
one  of  these,  I  would  not,  at  first  sight,  conclude  that  the 
others  were  of  the  same  man,  though  the  Naples  bust  and 
the  Roman  statue,  when  studied,  soon  assert  identity  of 
original.  I  had  seen  those  busts  and  statues  of  him 
before  my  interest  and  curiosity  had  been  fully  aroused. 
After  discovering  the  nebulous  condition  of  knowledge 
of  this  subject,  even  in  Rome,  I  determined  to  see  all 
his  busts  and  statues  again,  to  make  a  critical  study  and 
comparison  among  them,  and  to  obtain  photographs, 
drawings,  or  casts  of  every  marble  or  bronze  that  could  be 
found  assuming  to  be  of  him.  To  do  this  intelligently, 
one  must  necessarily  become  acquainted  with  the  writings 
of  the  archaeologists  and  iconographists  who  have  studied 
and  verified  antiques.  Running  down  and  examining 


INTRODUCTORY  9 

the  authorities  concerning  antique  portraitures  of  Julius 
Csesar  now  in  existence,  I  found  the  study  classified 
for  me  by  the  able  researches  of  a  very  recent  writer, 
Professor  J.  J.  Bernoulli  of  the  University  of  Basle. 
His  work,  Rondsche  Ikonographie,1  published  in  1882, 
is,  as  near  as  may  be,  the  condensation  of  previous  lore 
on  its  various  subjects;  and  the  source  from  which  more 
recent  writers  have  drawn  to  enliven  our  knowledge  of 
Julius  Caesar  portraiture.  In  that  work  he  has  listed 
sixty  statues  and  busts,  antiques,  or  reasonably  supposed 
antiques,  with  terse  notes  upon  them ;  but  has  given 
plates  or  cuts  of  but  eleven :  —  those  previously  best 
known.  Of  course  word  descriptions  are  of  little  value 
to  give  true  impressions  either  of  living  persons  or  of 
works  of  art.  Forty-nine  of  his  numbers  have  no  pictorial 
representation,  either  in  his  w'ork,  or  elsewhere.  In  the 
beginning  of  my  interest  in  the  subject  I  had  no  expecta- 
tion to  do  more  than  collect  photographs  or  casts  for  the 
most  complete  collection  possible  of  my  subject ;  but  as 
the  search  progressed,  additional  heads  came  to  light  that 
were  not  in  Bernoulli's  list,  some  exceedingly  interesting ; 
and  at  last  I  found  myself  in  possession  of  more  materials 
than  my  most  worthy  masters  and  predecessors. 

When  those  in  the  museums  of  the  Vatican  were  compared 
with  the  heads  previously  seen,  a  feeling  of  astonishment  came 
over  me  that  physiognomies  so  dissimilar  had  been  conceded 
by  competent  authorities  to  be  of  the  same  person.  Busts 
with  faces  even  less  closely  related  to  those  first  seen  were 

1  In  German.     Published  by  Verlag  von  W.  Spemann,  Stuttgart.     3  volumes. 


10        PORTRAITURES   OF   JULIUS   CESAR 

found  in  other  collections  in  Rome  ;  some  more  nearly  related 
were  afterwards  seen  in  Florence,  Pisa,  Parma,  Turin ;  and 
at  last  in  every  great  capital  in  Europe.  The  incredulity 
which  had  taken  root  in  my  mind  as  to  the  certainty  that 
any  of  them  were  portraits  of  Julius  Caesar,  wore  slowly 
away.  Faith  and  ideals  which  had  been  shaken  and  confused 
revived,  and  became  more  and  more  clear.  Ideals  of  the  real 
presence  of  the  man  began  to  shape  themselves  out  of  the 
aggregate  of  the  imperfect  marbles  preserved.  The  spirit  of 
inquiry,  a  rage  of  curiosity,  which  had  been  aroused,  opened 
the  vistas  of  knowledge.  The  study  became  an  engrossing 
hobby  that  lent  zest  to  travel,  and  finally  bore  me  during 
four  years  to  all  the  great  museums  of  Europe,  and  into 
many  private  art  collections,  to  search  for,  and  to  compare 
all  the  materials  that  have  come  down  to  us,  antique, 
mediaeval,  or  renaissance,  which  may  throw  light  on  the 
features  and  head  of  Julius  Caesar.  With  ample  time  to 
visit  art  collections  where  his  effigy  is  catalogued  among  the 
antiques,  I  found  the  study  of  them  to  be  increasingly 
interesting,  by  reason  of  the  ever  varying  differences  in 
features  and  expression.  It  became  more  and  more  instruc- 
tive in  opening  my  mind  to  see  the  resemblances,  the  common 
individuality,  between  many  of  the  heads  where  at  first  view 
I  had  remarked  only  the  dissimilarities.  The  researches  of 
Italian  archaeologists  have  not  absolutely  identified  any  statue 
or  bust  of  Caesar  as  of  his  life-time,  or  the  work  of  any 
sculptor  who  worked  in  Rome  while  he  was  a  living  presence 
there.  Yet  tradition  dimly  lights  the  way,  and  circumstan- 
*tial  evidences  multiply,  to  inspire  conviction  that  the  great 


PLATE   II 


COINS  WITH  CJESAR'S  HEAD,  IN  THE  MUSEUM  OF  NAPLES 


INTRODUCTORY  11 

Italian  art  writers  have  not  erred  in  fixing  upon  certain 
antique  statues  and  busts  as  having  been  executed  in  Caesar's 
time  as  portraits  of  him ;  and  others  as  probable  studies 
executed  after  other  antiques  of  him  which  are  not  now  in 
existence. 

Many  of  the  coins  issued  near  the  end  of  his  dictatorship 
have  the  assumed  effigy  of  his  head  in  profile  upon  them. 
These  are  not  traditions,  but  hard  facts.  While  some  of 
these  effigies  are  simply  symbolical  of  one  or  another  of  the 
offices  he  held,  others  are  evidently  very  clumsy  attempts  to 
portray  Caesar's  profile,  —  some  of  them  being  caricatures 
of  it.  Scholarly  Italians,  and  antiquarians  of  other  countries 
who  have  made  a  study  of  old  coins,  have  settled  upon  those 
which  may  be  considered  genuine,  and  of  Caesar's  own  issue. 
But  as  to  which  of  these  profiles  may  be  worst  or  best,  we 
may  have  opinions,  and  such  general  agreement  as  may 
carry  weight,  but  we  have  no  certainties. 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  neither  coins,  medals, 
statues,  or  busts,  came  down  to  us  in  carefully  guarded 
museums  during  the  sixteen  hundred  years  after  Caesar,  and 
preceding  the  modern  museum.  The  coins  have  been  revealed 
by  the  plough,  by  excavations  in  scores  of  old  Roman  cities,  in 
hiding-places  of  old  walls,  in  sewers  and  wells,  in  river-beds, 
and  in  beach  sands,  washed  to  light  by  the  waves  of  the  sea. 
They  have  been  preserved  in  the  hoards  of  antiquarians,  and 
in  the  cabinets  of  the  wealthy.  At  last  they  are  mostly 
gathered  into  the  public  museums  of  the  great  capitals.  All 
the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean,  and  the  soils  of  the  countries 
bordering  upon  it,  still  continue  to  yield  up  coin  souvenirs  of 


12        PORTRAITURES   OF   JULIUS   OESAR 

the  notable  men  of  old  Rome.  By  the  kindness  of  Signor 
Jules  Petra,  director  of  the  Museum  of  Naples,  of  M.  Babelon, 
director  of  the  department  of  coins  and  medals  of  the  Biblio- 
theque  Nationale  of  Paris,  and  of  the  very  courteous  keepers 
of  the  coins  and  gems  of  the  British  Museum,  London,  I  am 
able  to  present  the  accompanying  photogravures  of  the  most 
valuable  (as  likenesses)  of  the  antique  coins  bearing  his  effigy. 
The  photographs  are  taken  from  plaster  casts  ordered  for  me 
by  the  directors  of  the  museums  respectively,  from  which  a 
much  clearer  relief  can  be  obtained  than  from  the  originals. 
The  latter  are  so  dark,  discoloured,  and  corroded  by  time  that 
the  photographer  cannot  make  satisfactory  work  from  them. 
The  coins  bearing  Julius  Caesar's  profile,  or  caricatures 
of  it,  ordered  when  he  was  perpetual  dictator,  and  issued 
just  before  or  soon  after  his  death,  have  been  considered  the 
most  fundamental  data  for  knowing  his  features.  I  do  not 
think  them  so.  They  are  too  widely  different  one  from 
another,  and  too  bad  as  art  works  to  count  for  much  in 
portraiture.  But  they  cannot  be  ignored,  and  must  be 
studied  and  compared;  not  only  with  each  other,  but  with 
every  statue,  bust,  or  head  that  bears  proof  of  having  been 
intended  for  him,  and  of  sufficient  antiquity  to  indicate  it  to 
be  of  the  Caesarean  era,  or  a  study  from  antiques  of  that 
time.  Among  all  these  the  diversities  of  feature  and  expres- 
sion range  widely  apart ;  but  the  careful  study  of  many  able 
and  cautious  Italian  scholars  and  iconographists  during  the 
last  four  centuries  has  brought  a  large  agreement  upon  points 
of  resemblance.  Fortified  by  ample  descriptions  of  Caesar  in 
Roman  literature  of  his  time,  these  agreements  combine  to 


PLATE  III 


PARIS  COINS 


INTRODUCTORY  13 

show  clearly  to  the  modern  student,  however  sceptical  he 
may  be  in  the  beginning,  that  Caesar's  lineaments  are  surely 
known,  however  shamefully  some  of  the  coins  and  busts  may 
caricature  him.  The  coins  are  a  motley  shabby  lot.  But 
we  must  remember  that  they  were  issued  in  a  revolutionary 
period,  at  the  very  close  of  his  life,  after  an  absence  from 
Rome  of  nine  years  in  Gaul,  succeeded  by  five  years  of  hasty 
visits  to  the  capital,  in  interludes  between  adventurous 
campaigns  far  from  it.  These  short  returns  assuredly  allowed 
him  no  time  to  pose  for  die-cutters  or  sculptors.  Money  had 
to  be  issued  quickly  and  copiously,  without  reference  to  the 
artistic  merit  of  the  dies,  or  the  resemblance  of  the  profiles 
to  Caesar.  Some  of  the  effigies  on  his  coins  were  designed 
to  typify  his  pontifical  office, —  the  head  drapery  being  more 
important  in  the  workman's  eyes  than  the  features  under  it. 
Some  aimed  to  represent  Caesar's  profile,  but  made  apprentice 
work  of  it.  Others  contented  themselves  with  wild  approxi- 
mations, seemingly  without  care  for  accuracy.  A  few  are  cari- 
catures :  as  if  the  artists  were  in  sympathy  with  his  enemies, 
and  in  his  absence  took  malicious  pleasure  in  using  the  graver 
to  belittle  the  conqueror.  It  was  not  a  period  of  artistic 
excellence  of  any  kind.  The  gravers'  and  the  sculptors'  arts 
had  come  to  the  highest  perfection  before  Caesar's  time,  and 
reached  it  again  after  it,  in  the  reigns  of  the  emperors 
Augustus  and  Hadrian.  But  the  whole  revolutionary  period 
preceding,  during,  and  after  his  time,  was  not  an  era  of  good 
art  work. 

When   we    think    of    the    strain    on    body    and    mind 
endured  by  Caesar   during   the   last    fourteen  years  of  his 


14        PORTRAITURES   OF   JULIUS   C^SAR 

life,  it  is  easy  to  realize  that  the  handsome  young  "  ladies' 
man "  and  politician,  the  stately  senator,  orator,  jurist, 
governor,  and  consul,  all  of  which  positions  he  had  filled 
before  leaving  Rome,  had  come  back  at  the  end  of  his 
nine  years  of  explorations  and  campaigning  in  Gaul  much 
aged,  and  marked  by  lines  of  care.  Still  more  must  he 
have  been  worn  by  the  anxieties  of  the  Civil  War  which 
followed,  with  its  four  years  of  incessant  struggles  under  the 
burning  sun  of  Greece,  Egypt,  Syria,  Carthage,  Spain.  A 
thin-cheeked,  bony-faced,  lean-necked  man  is  shown  in  the 
profiles  which  the  engravers  who  caught  sight  of  him  in 
the  few  days  he  remained  at  the  capital,  have  produced  on 
the  coin  dies.  Some  of  them  emphasized  the  sinewy  but 
not  large  neck,  the  angular  underjaw,  and  the  hollow 
cheek ;  others,  the  rather  prominent  nose,  and  the  strongly 
marked  but  not  large  chin.  A  full,  high,  intellectual 
forehead,  and  a  long  head,  are  common  to  many  of  the 
profiles,  which  do  not  resemble  each  other  otherwise ; 
while  on  some  he  is  shown  with  a  characterless  profile 
and  an  insignificant  head.  The  large,  mobile  mouth  had 
little  chance  of  being  expressed  on  the  profiles  of  small 
coins;  so  that  concerning  this  most  expressive  of  all  the 
features,  the  coins  suggest  little  of  value,  and  we  are 
forced  to  rely  for  this  feature  on  descriptions  of  his  per- 
son by  contemporaries,  and  on  the  statues  and  busts  con- 
ceded to  be  of  him.  By  comparison  of  all  the  coins  of 
his  time  bearing  his  profile,  or  the  symbols  of  his  offices, 
one  soon  learns  to  put  aside  some  of  them  as  too  bad  to 
warrant  further  attention,  and  to  see  in  the  others  certain 


INTRODUCTORY  15 

repeated  peculiarities  that  furnish  our  human  instinct  and 
reason  some  data  for  conclusions.  In  connection  with 
literary  descriptions  and  allusions  to  him  in  his  day, 
and  with  the  busts  and  statues  identified  as  of  him,  we 
are  led  to  clearer  and  clearer  views  of  which  of  them 
may  be  good,  or  partly  good,  and  which  of  them  must  be 
bad,  or  very  bad. 

When  all  the  preserved  coins  and  gems,  and  the 
statues  and  busts  bearing  evidence  of  being  of  Caesar's 
era,  and  intended  to  represent  him,  had  been  studied  and 
compared  by  acute  Italian  iconographists  of  past  centuries, 
they  settled  easily  on  the  points  of  physiognomy  which 
identified  him.  As  botanists  learn  to  classify  into  one 
family  trees  and  plants  that  do  not  at  first  glance  bear 
strong  likeness,  by  generic  traits  simple  to  their  minds, 
so  have  iconographists  learned  to  class  together  as  Julius 
Caesars  a  variety  of  types,  in  which  they  see  unity  in 
variety.  To  have  such  a  sense  of  Caesar's  personality  one 
must  be  familiar  with  his  life,  with  the  coins,  gems, 
statues,  and  busts  of  him,  and  with  all  that  his  contem- 
poraries said  concerning  his  personal  appearance. 

From  what  I  have  said  of  the  coins  it  is  plain  that 
from  them  alone  no  satisfactory  ideal  of  the  head  and 
face  of  Julius  Caesar  can  be  realized.  We  therefore  look 
to  the  statues  and  busts  preserved,  supposed  to  be  of  his 
life-time,  or  soon  after,  to  form  a  better  conception.  At 
first  we  are  baffled  by  the  uncertain  antiquity  of  most  of 
those  which  personate  him  in  the  great  museums,  and 
confused  by  the  diversity  of  types  we  discover ;  those 


16        PORTRAITURES    OF   JULIUS   C^SAR 

which  personate  him  in  one  museum  differing  so  much 
from  some  which  do  the  same  duty  in  another  museum. 
But  when  all  are  seen  and  studied,  notwithstanding  their 
differences,  we  find  a  relationship  so  clearly  indicated  by 
their  traits  that  it  is  reasonable  to  conclude  that  they 
are  more  or  less  good  or  bad  portraits  of  the  same  per- 
son. Is  it  Julius  Caesar?  Collateral  facts,  circumstantial 
evidence,  aid  in  proving  the  truth  of  an  affirmative  an- 
swer to  that  question.  Certain  great  marbles,  like  the 
colossal  head  of  the  Naples  Museum,  and  the  Conserva- 
tori  statue  of  Rome,  are  of  a  size  and  elaborateness  of 
finish  that  indicate  a  person  of  commanding  position.  On 
the  statue  last  mentioned  the  dress  is  that  of  an  em- 
peror, or  at  least  of  an  imperator.  Now  Augustus,  and 
emperors  after  him,  and  the  men  of  great  prominence  in 
Julius's  own  time,  are  so  well  known  by  their  faces  on 
medals  and  coins,  or  by  their  statues  and  busts,  that  it 
becomes  evident  at  once  to  careful  students  that  the  two 
great  works  named  must  be  other  than  they;  and  can 
represent  only  that  man  of  commanding  prominence  who 
filled  the  whole  round  of  public  station  and  imperial 
honours  in  the  interval  of  history  between  the  so-called 
republic  and  the  empire :  —  which  only  Julius  Caesar  did 
fill.  Other  statues  and  busts  in  considerable  numbers 
have  a  traditional  attribution  to  the  dictator,  and  prove 
their  right  to  it  partly  by  similarity  to  the  Naples  bust 
and  the  Conservatori  statue,  partly  by  a  certain  ideal 
composite  Caesar  that  the  coins  suggest,  and  partly  by  a 
correspondence  with  the  Latin  descriptions  of  him  written 


INTRODUCTORY  17 

in  his  time.     Thus  the  personal  identity  of  the  busts  and 
statues  grows  clearer  as  one  studies  them  all. 

During  the  past  three  centuries  the  great  nations  of 
Europe  have  been  collecting  from  Italy  antique  statues 
and  busts  for  their  museums ;  and  their  rich  citizens  have 
bought  for  their  private  collections.  A  comparison  of 
those  assuming  to  be  Julius  Caesars  remaining  in  Italy 
with  the  ones  transplanted  into  northern  countries  shows 
that  those  still  found  in  Italian  cities  embrace  all  the 
valuable  types,  and  (excepting  only  the  one  in  the  British 
Museum)  the  finest  examples  of  each.  Nearly  all  the 
antique  museums  of  the  North  European  nations  contain 
some  catalogued  Julius  Caesar,  each  one  of  which  may 
have  value  in  this  study.  Buried  in  private  collections 
there  may  be  others  that  the  world  of  to-day  has  not 
heard  of.  Nor  is  there  reason  to  doubt  that  antique 
bronzes  and  marbles  of  this  king  of  men  may  yet  be 
exhumed  somewhere  and  some  time  from  the  buried  ruins 
of  cities,  villas,  and  tombs  around  the  Mediterranean. 
Three  among  the  most  life-like  heads  of  Caesar  now 
known  have  been  brought  to  light  within  a  century. 
Each  of  those  we  now  know,  or  which  may  yet  be  dis- 
covered, contributes,  or  may  contribute,  something  to  the 
variety  that  gives  zest  to  the  study. 

Classical  students,  versed  in  the  great  deeds  of  Caesar's 
life,  will  need  no  spur  to  their  curiosity  in  comparing 
faces  of  busts  and  statues  which  few  of  them  have  seen. 
But  another  class  of  readers,  of  high  intelligence  in  cur- 
rent matters,  and  less  in  ancient  history,  may  be  content 


18        PORTRAITURES   OF   JULIUS   C^SAR 

that  I  have  prepared  "  A  Brief  of  Csesar's  Life "  to  epit- 
omize the  marvellous  events  of  his  career.  It  forms  the 
next  chapter,  and  precedes  the  essential  subject-matter  of 
the  book.  If  it  is  threshing  over  old  straw  for  the  former 
class,  it  may  be  a  sheaf  of  fresh  grain  to  the  latter,  and 
may  serve  to  quicken  for  both  the  interest  they  will 
take  in  the  various  types  of  portraitures  here  collected 
for  them. 


IDEAL  HEAD  OF  C-ESAR  BY  THE  FRENCH  PAINTER  INGRES 


PLATE  IV 


JULIUS  C.ESAR  :  No.  107,  CHIARAMONTI  GALLERY,  VATICAN,  ROME 


CHAPTER   II 
A  BRIEF  OF  CAESAR'S  LIFE 

CAIUS  JULIUS  CJESAR  was  born  one  hundred  years 
before  the  birth  of  Christ,1  and  was  reared  in  a  period  when 
the  Roman  Republic,  so  called,  had  degenerated  into  a  con- 
dition of  chronic  civil  war. 

Dean  Merivale  declares  that  Caesar's  is  the  greatest 
name  in  history.  Mommsen,  the  German  historian,  sums 
him  up  as  the  perfect  man.  Froude  reveals  him  in  a  nobler 
light  than  previous  history  has  shown,  and  can  hardly  per- 
mit himself  to  see  a  fault.  Anthony  Trollope  declares 
Caesar's  Commentaries  to  be  the  beginning  of  authentic 
history.  His  initiative  and  his  acts  influenced  the  course 
of  history  in  his  own  time,  and  through  subsequent  centuries 
more  radically,  on  a  wider  field,  and  among  a  greater  num- 
ber of  peoples,  than  the  doings  of  any  man  who  lived  before 
him,  or  who  has  lived  since. 

Well  born,  well  educated,  rich,  attached  to  a  noble  mother 
who  was  one  of  the  most  cultivated  and  intellectual  women 
of  her  time,  renowned  in  Rome  for  the  charm  of  her  con- 
versation and  the  simplicity  of  her  living,  the  auguries  of 
nature  and  station  were  all  in  his  favour.  At  eighteen,  his 

1  Mommsen  makes  it  out  one  hundred  and  two  years  B.C.,  which  would  show 
the  incidents  of  his  early  life  more  probable  and  natural. 

19 


20        PORTRAITURES   OF   JULIUS   C^SAR 

father  having  died,  he  married  the  daughter  of  the  then 
Consul,  Cinna,  leader  of  the  popular  party,  lived  with  her 
at  his  mother's  home  while  she  lived,  and  after  her  death 
remained  at  that  mother's  home  until  after  he  was  first 
consul. 

It  was  not  a  prosperous  age.  Though  Cicero,  Caesar, 
and  a  few  others  have  left  a  record  upon  the  time  as  ora- 
tors and  literary  men  of  a  high  order,  it  was  generally  an 
age  of  horrors :  —  of  revolution  and  anarchy.  Battles  and 
butcheries  in  the  streets  of  Rome,  in  the  constant  struggles 
between  the  patricians  and  the  common  people,  organized  in 
Caesar's  boyhood  under  the  protection  of  the  people's  favourite 
general,  Marius,  on  one  side,  and  afterwards  by  the  Dictator 
Sylla,  the  patrician  leader  on  the  other  side,  left  no  atrocity 
of  passion  and  butchery,  or  of  cold-blooded  murders,  assassin- 
ations and  confiscations,  unfamiliar  to  the  citizens  of  Rome 
and  to  the  people  of  Italy.  The  horrors  of  the  French  revolu- 
tion only,  parallel  this  epoch  of  history.  Cicero  and  Caesar 
lived  in  it  at  its  worst,  and  though  not  participants  in  the 
bloody  deeds  of  their  contemporaries,  they  were  witnesses  of 
them ;  and  each  in  his  own  way  was  ambitious  to  be  a  leader, 
and  to  bring  about  an  improved  administration  of  govern- 
ment, and  respect  for  law. 

Magnificent  in  the  surroundings  of  their  daily  lives,  the 
gilded  youth  of  that  day  were  invited  by  all  the  sirens  of 
love  and  fashion,  and  by  the  worship  of  Bacchus,  .to  lives  of 
ignominy  and  shame;  to  bacchanalian  carnivals,  and  daily 
debauch.  To  assassinate,  and  to  employ  assassins,  was  a 
patrician  privilege.  It  is  recorded  of  Caesar  from  his  early 


PLATE  V 


HEAD  OF  MARIUS  :  CHIARAMONTI  GALLERY,  VATICAN,  ROME 


A    BRIEF    OF   CESAR'S    LIFE  21 

youth  that  he  was  extremely  temperate,  and  of  a  dignity  of 
character  that  placed  him  above  low  associates  of  his  class. 
Stories  to  the  contrary  are  regarded  by  Froude l  as  the  cam- 
paign lies  of  his  patrician  enemies,  who  sought  to  cast  on 
his  more  elevated  life  the  stains  of  their  own  vices,  and  to 
magnify  his  real  deflections  in  the  mirror  of  their  own 
degradation. 

The  patricians  were  an  educated  class.  Literary  men 
from  their  ranks,  or  below,  had  them  only  for  their  patrons. 
Their  opinions  and  their  tastes  had  to  be  pandered  to  by 
writers  hoping  for  readers.  In  Caesar's  time,  and  for  gen- 
erations afterward,  literature  descriptive  of  him  and  his 
time  was  coloured  by  the  stories,  false  or  true,  which  such 
writers  and  readers  were  pleased  to  write,  to  hear,  and  to 
circulate. 

Early  in  life  it  was  Caesar's  ambition  to  become  a  leader 
in  some  way,  or  in  all  ways.  He  was  first  ambitious  to  be 
an  orator,  a  lawyer,  and  a  statesman.  Though  six  years 
younger  than  Cicero,  they  were  friends  in  youth,  and  Caesar 
was  doubtless  emulous  of  the  dawning  success  of  the 
former  as  an  orator.  As  a  youth  he  entered  into  the 
civil  struggles  of  party  politics  in  Rome.  Leadership  was 
instinct  in  him,  and  statesmanship  was  his  forte.  Step 
by  step,  by  every  device  of  intelligence,  self-control,  suavity, 
and  prudence,  or  by  bold  and  timely  extravagance  and 
audacity,  he  rose  to  one  position  after  another  in  the  pro- 
gressive grades  of  Roman  civil  service.  His  life  is  a 

1  Caesar :   A  Sketch :  by  James  Anthony  Froude.    1  vol.    Longmans,  Green, 
&  Co.     London,  1896. 


22        PORTRAITURES    OF   JULIUS    C^SAR 

romance  of  worked-for  success  from  beginning  to  end.  By 
favour  only  once,  and  that  probably  through  his  mother's 
influence  with  his  uncle-in-law,  the  aged  Marius,  he  was 
made  a  priest  of  Jupiter :  —  a  member  of  the  sacred  college 
with  an  income  attached  —  when  he  was  but  a  boy  of  sixteen 
or  seventeen.  At  twenty,  refusing  to  put  away  his  wife  at 
the  command  of  Sylla,  the  patrician  general  who  crushed  the 
popular  party,  a  price  was  put  on  his  head  by  that  dictator, 
and  he  hid  in  the  hills  and  swamps  around  Rome  for  a 
year.  Influences  were  brought  to  bear  to  induce  Sylla  to 
lift  the  ban.  He  did  so,  with  the  remark  to  Caesar's  friends, 
"  Take  him,  since  you  will  have  it  so,  but  I  warn  you  that  in 
this  loose-girt  youth  there  are  many  Mariuses."  Quickly 
after  his  return  to  Rome,  still  fearing  Sylla' s  assassins,  he 
embarked  in  the  service  of  Thermus  who  had  been  deputed 
to  clear  the  Greek  seas  of  pirates.  He  was  sent  to  the 
king  of  Bithynia  (south  of  the  Bosphorus)  to  procure  addi- 
tional vessels.  He  was  quickly  successful.  Not  long  after 
he  is  heard  of  as  having  won  the  oak  wreath  of  Rome  for 
distinguished  valour  at  the  storming  of  Mitylene  on  an  island 
in  the  Grecian  Sea.  He  must  at  this  time  have  been  about 
twenty-four  years  old.  After  this  he  is  said  to  have  had  a 
short  period  of  very  gay  life  at  the  court,  not  far  from  Constan- 
tinople, of  King  Nicomedes,  of  Bithynia.  Soon  after  Sylla's 
death  he  returned  to  Rome,  and  the  family  property  which 
had  been  confiscated  by  that  dictator,  was  restored.  Caesar 
again  took  an  active  part  in  politics.  He  undertook  to  prose- 
cute Dolabella  for  embezzlement  in  the  governorship  of  a 
province  from  which  the  latter  had  just  returned.  Wealth, 


PLATE  VI 


BUST  OF  SYLLA,  OF  THE  VATICAN  MUSEUM 


A    BRIEF   OF    CESAR'S    LIFE  23 

and  experienced  lawyers  on  the  other  side,  were  too  much 
for  him.  He  was  beaten,  and  seems  to  have  devoted  the 
next  two  years  of  his  life  to  study  with  one  Apollonius  Molo, 
a  famous  professor  of  rhetoric  and  oratory  on  the  island  of 
Rhodes.  On  the  voyage  thither  he  was  taken  by  pirates,  and 
held  for  an  enormous  ransom ;  the  style  in  which  he  travelled 
giving  them  reason  to  believe  him  very  rich.  He  seemed 
already  well  known  on  the  Asiatic  shore  north  of  Rhodes,  as 
the  cities  there  quickly  contributed  to  raise  the  sum  required. 
As  soon  as  set  free  upon  the  main-land,  he  chartered  vessels, 
hired  fighting  men,  and  returned  so  quickly  to  the  pirates' 
island  that  he  found  them  carousing  over  the  ransom  money. 
He  took  them  prisoners  and  regained  it.  Having  playfully 
remarked  to  them,  while  he  was  joining  in  their  games  as 
a  prisoner,  that  he  would  yet  have  them  all  hanged,  they 
were  taken  to  the  nearest  court  on  the  main-land  for  a 
regular  trial,  and  were  convicted  and  hanged.  He  then 
went  on  to  the  school  of  Molo,  and  is  supposed  to  have 
remained  there  two  years.  At  the  age  of  twenty-five  or 
twenty-six  he  returned  to  Rome,  and  was  soon  elected 
military  Tribune.  This  gave  him  an  official  position  as  a 
speaker  in  public  places.  Cicero,  who  had  previously  been 
an  intimate  acquaintance,  describes  him  after  his  return  as 
an  orator  of  graceful  diction,  and  persuasive  force  of  reason- 
ing, devoid  of  the  flowers  of  rhetoric.  Few  records  are  left 
of  this  period  of  his  life,  which  seems  to  have  been  fairly 
divided  between  the  pleasures  of  society,  the  practice  of  law, 
and  efforts  of  statesmanship,  with  a  steady  growth  of  influence 
among  the  people.  At  the  age  of  about  thirty-two  he  was 


24        PORTRAITURES   OF   JULIUS   CESAR 

made  Quaestor.     This  gave  him  a  seat  in  the  Senate.     The 
following   year  he  was  ^dile.      Up  to  his  thirty- 
third  year  he  seems  to  have  had  steadily  in  mind 
the   procurement  of  laws  designed  to  broaden  the  basis  of 
citizenship  in  Italy ;    had  become  the  recognized  leader   of 
the  popular  party,  and  an  uncompromising  opponent  of  the 
excessive  prerogatives  and  immunities  of  the  patricians. 

About  this  time  Pompey  was  pacifying  Spain,  and 
Crassus  was  making  head  against  a  formidable  rising  of 
slaves  in  Italy  under  Spartacus,  which  for  a  short  time 
threatened  to  overwhelm  Rome.  Caesar  had  not  a  mili- 
tary training,  and  seems  not  to  have  had  an  inclination  for 
a  military  life ;  nor  was  he  yet  imagined  to  have  military 
genius.  The  great  wars  in  which  Pompey  had  been  en- 
gaged in  Asia,  Egypt,  and  Spain,  with  unvarying  success, 
and  unstained  reputation,  made  him  the  hero  of  the  time. 
Caesar  was  ripening  as  a  statesman  and  a  jurist,  while 
Pompey  was  towering  above  him  with  all  the  glory  of 
military  honours.  Caesar,  far  from  joining  the  Senate  party 
to  keep  him  down,  or  instigating  the  popular  party  to 
suspect  his  honesty,  his  patriotism,  or  his  ambition,  joined 
with  Cicero  and  Crassus  to  obtain  for  Pompey  the  supreme 
command  of  the  Roman  army  and  navy  for  the  purpose 
of  ridding  the  Mediterranean  of  the  pirates  who  had  be- 
come masters  of  that  great  sea,  and  levied  tribute  on 
towns  and  villas  on  all  its  coasts.  Pompey  was  given 
the  power,  and  made  short  work  of  them.  He  then 
returned  to  Rome,  but  having  no  ability  or  tact  in  the 
affairs  of  civil  government,  he  fell  under  the  influence 


PLATE    VII 


BUST  OF  CICERO,  OF  THE  CAPITOLIXE,  ROME 


A    BRIEF    OF    CESAR'S    LIFE  25 

of  Cicero,  Crassus,  and  Caesar.  The  intelligence  of  the 
latter  in  the  Senate  and  in  the  Tribune  was  yearly  becoming 
more  evident  and  commanding.  Cicero  grew  uneasy  at 
his  growing  power,  but  was  of  too  vacillating  and  treacher- 
ous a  mind  to  become  either  a  square  opponent,  or  a  true 
friend ;  and  he  threw  his  sympathies  to  the  side  of  the 
patricians.  Caesar  moved  forward  steadily  on  his  pwn 
lines,  and  united  Crassus  and  Pompey  to  act  with  him. 
He  began  prosecutions  of  the  officers  who  had  been  en- 
riched by  serving  Sylla  in  his  systematic  assassinations  of 
Italians  of  democratic  sympathies,  and  the  confiscation 
of  their  properties.  He  succeeded  in  convicting  many  of 
them,  and  in  restoring'  the  confiscated  homes  and  estates 
to  their  former  owners. 

In  his  thirty-seventh  year  there  became  vacant,  by 
the  death  of  an  old  man,  the  office  of  Pontifex  Maximus, 
or  Pope  of  the  then  Roman  religion.  This  office 
was  elective,  and  was  richly  endowed.  Two  can- 
didates were  put  up  by  the  patricians,  both  backed  by  great 
wealth.  Caesar  came  in  at  the  eleventh  hour  as  the 
popular  candidate.  On  a  count  of  the  votes,  those  for  him 
exceeded  the  votes  for  the  two  other  candidates.  About 
this  time  the  great  Catiline  conspiracy  filled  Rome  with 
fear.  Caesar  aided  Cicero  to  expose  it.  But  in  the  Senate 
he  opposed  in  a  masterly  speech  the  unlawful  decree  of 
that  body  to  put  the  conspirators  to  death  without  trial. 
Through  Cato's  influence  he  failed,  and  came  near  being 
assassinated  in  the  Senate  chamber  by  the  young  patricians 
for  his  effort.  He  was  then  a  Praetor,  a  judicial  posi- 


26        PORTRAITURES    OF   JULIUS   C^SAR 

tion,  giving  him  considerable  civil  power.  Not  having 
accomplished  his  assassination,  the  Cato  party  feared  what 
he  might  do  as  Praetor  to  condemn  their  illegal  act,  and 
got  a  decree  through  the  Senate  to  degrade  him  from 
that  office,  and  forbidding  him  to  exercise  its  functions. 
He  quietly  obeyed  the  decree,  and  reminded  his  indignant 
friends  that  obedience  to  law  is  the  first  duty  of  the 
citizen.  The  Senate,  not  long  after,  recognizing  the  weak- 
ness of  its  position,  repealed  the  decree. 

At  the  expiration  of  his  year  as  Praetor  the  softened 
Senate,  with  the  friendly  assistance  of  Pompey,  Cicero,  and 
BC  61  Crassus,  appointed  Caesar  Propraetor  or  Governor 
ge39'  of  Spain.  There,  for  nearly  two  years,  he  was 
Governor,  Chief-Justice,  and  General  in  one.  For  the  first 
time  he  found  himself  in  the  command  of  an  army.  He  is 
said  to  have  handled  it  efficiently,  pushing  the  Roman  posts 
to  the  Atlantic  coast,  and  afterward  reorganizing  the  ^ad- 
ministration of  justice,  and  the  collection  of  taxes  and 
revenue  so  as  to  satisfy  the  Spanish  people,  and  to  add  to 
the  revenue  of  the  Roman  government.  His  genius  for 
civic  administration  had  here  its  first  full  illustration. 

At  the  end  of  his  term  as  Governor  of  Spain  he  was 

entitled   either   to   a   public   triumph,   or   to    be   candidate 

for  the  consulship  the  coming  year.     He  was  now 

B.C.  59. 

forty-one  years  of  age.  He  relinquished  the  former, 
and  stood  for  the  latter.  In  Rome  his  administration  in 
Spain  had  added  to  his  reputation.  He  was  elected  almost 
unanimously,  and  during  the  one  year  of  his  consulship 
enacted  into  law  most  of  the  reforms  for  which  he  had 


A    BRIEF    OF    CESAR'S    LIFE  27 

been  working  for  twenty  years.  Among  the  solid  achieve- 
ments of  the  year  was  the  compilation  of  laws  known 
among  jurists  for  nearly  two  thousand  years  as  the  Code 
Julian ;  and  the  extension  of  representation  to  Italian  cities 
outside  of  the  city  of  Rome.  Also  the  first  law  known 
requiring  the  daily  publication  of  the  doings  of  the  Senate. 
On  the  expiry  of  his  consulate  he  was  entitled  to  appoint- 
ment as  Proconsul,  or  Governor,  of  one  or  another  of  the 
great  provinces  subject  to  Rome.  But  his  vigorous  forward 
movements  in  law-making,  while  with  the  consular  spur  he 
could  urge  his  measures  through,  had  thrown  the  old  Senate 
into  new  spasms  of  fury  against  the  daring  man.  They  had 
concluded  to  clip  his  wings  in  the  future,  by  assigning  him  to 
the  Department  of  Woods  and  Forests: —  least  of  all  in  power 
and  importance.  He  remained  silent  for  a  while  ;  then  ap- 
pealed from  the  Senate  to  the  Assembly  of  the  people  to 
assign  him  to  a  province  where  he  might  be  most  useful ; 
he  himself  indicating  Cisalpine-Gaul,  (the  valley  of  the  Po, 
and  southern  France)  and  Illyria  as  his  preference.  It 
was  given  him  for  five  years,  by  the  popular  Assembly. 
His  appointment  was  then  confirmed  by  the  Senate. 

Caesar  spent  many  months  preparing  an  army  of  soldiers 
and  mechanics  outside  the  walls  of  Rome.  Not  a  large 
army,  but,  as  events  proved,  one  prepared  to  meet  every 
emergency  of  war  with  axe  and  spade  and  mechanical  skill, 
as  well  as  with  sword  and  spear.  At  the  age  of  forty-two 
he  began  that  military  career  which  has  no  equal 

B  C    ^8 

in   all   history  for   the  variety   of  tests  of  genius 

which   he  passed  through,  and  for  its  unvarying  success. 


28        PORTRAITURES   OF   JULIUS    C^SAR 

One  must  read  his  own  simple  record  in  The  Commentaries, 
and  know  the  breadth  of  unknown  country  that  he 
covered  with  his  operations  during  those  years,  to  realize 
the  many-sided  genius  of  the  man. 

At  the  end  of  his  first  campaign,  beginning  near  the 
west  border  of  Switzerland,  at  Geneva,  and  ending  south 
of  Dijon  in  France,  he  had  succeeded  in  turning  back  and 
partly  destroying  an  emigrating  body  of  Swiss,  numbering 
upward  of  three  hundred  thousand,  including  sixty 
thousand  fighting  men,  with  his  own  little  army  of  not 
more  than  fifteen  thousand  to  twenty  thousand.  At 
the  end  of  the  campaign  it  began  to  be  suspected  in  Rome 
that  he  had  military  talent ;  and  the  patricians  were  pleased 
to  think  that  he  might  soon  be  killed.  At  the  end  of  the 
next  summer's  campaign  in  central  and  eastern  France,  Rome 
was  electrified  by  the  dash,  vigour,  and  scope  of  his  military 
activity.  Still  the  patricians  were  complacent  with  hope 
that  in  Gaul  they  were  well  rid  of  him.  The  third  year's 
campaign  showed  Caesar  as  the  greatest  explorer  and  the 
most  daring  leader  of  small  forces  against  great  odds 
then  known  in  history.  The  fourth,  fifth,  sixth,  and 
seventh  campaigns  followed  in  successive  years,  in  which 
we  see  him  like  an  electric  streak  passing  from  one  cloud 
to  another ;  now  bridging  the  Rhine  with  a  quickness  that 
inspired  wonder  and  terror  among  the  Germans ;  now 
surprising  the  Belgians  in  the  depths  of  their  forests; 
anon  across  the  channel  and  battling  with  the  Britons ; 
then  on  the  shores  of  the  Bay  of  Biscay  near  the  mouth 
of  the  Loire,  building  oar-manned  fleets  to  fight  the 


A    BRIEF    OF    CESAR'S    LIFE  29 

defiant  maritime  people  of  that  coast ;  then  again  in 
southwest  France,  in  northeast  France :  —  everywhere  sur- 
rounded by  overwhelming  odds  of  brave  and  active  enemies, 
yet  closing  the  campaigns  generally  so  early  in  the  fall, 
that  he  returned  to  hold  court  and  conduct  the  civil 
administration  of  his  provinces  of  northern  Italy  and  Illyria 
during  the  winter ! 

The  terse  narratives  of  the  campaigns,  known  as  Ccesar's 
Commentaries,  which  have  become  history,  and  "  the  begin- 
ning of  modern  history,"  as  Anthony  Trollope  puts  it,  read 
like  exaggerations  of  fiction,  though  undoubted  hard  facts. 
The  patrician  politicians  of  Rome  were  disappointed  that 
Julius  did  not  get  himself  killed.  They  once  had  a 
message  conveyed  to  the  German  king,  Ariovistus,  who 
was  opposed  to  him  west  of  the  Rhine,  that  the  death  of 
Caesar  would  be  no  sorrow  to  them.  But  as  the  people 
were  enthusiastic  over  the  growing  romance  of  his 
career,  the  Senate  must  needs  vote  him  thanks,  and 
compliments,  and  a  public  triumph.  It  even  exuded  with 
adulation,  and  postponed  the  always  impending  assassina- 
tion. 

Before  his  five  years'  appointment  as  Governor  of 
Cisalpine-Gaul  and  Illyria  was  ended,  Caesar  had  called 
a  council  at  the  city  of  Lucca,  within  his  own  province, 
of  the  ablest  men  of  Italy,  to  consider  the  means  to 
insure  some  stability  in  the  administration  of  public 
affairs  at  the  capitol.  The  assembly  was  like  another 
Senate.  Two  hundred  of  the  leading  men  of  the  state, 
including  a  considerable  number  of  Senators,  formed  an 


30        PORTRAITURES   OF   JULIUS    C^SAR 

agreement  by  which  Pompey,  Crassus,  and  Caesar  were  to 
be  supported,  and  to  support  each  other.  Pompey  was 
to  maintain  order  in  Rome.  Crassus  was  to  keep  the 
Senate  and  the  popular  leaders  from  getting  at  each 
other's  throats.  Caesar  was  to  have  five  years'  extension 
of  his  governorship  of  Gaul  and  Illyria,  and  to  be  given 
the  first  consulship  again  at  the  expiry  of  his  second  term. 
To  Pompey,  was  to  be  given  the  governorship  of  Spain, 
and  to  Crassus,  Syria  ;  both  of  which  appointments 
would  precede,  by  several  "years,  the  expiry  of  Caesar's 
second  term.  Pompey  before  this  time  had  married  Caesar's 
daughter.  Thus  united,  no  patrician  intrigues  or  plebeian 
violence  could  endanger  the  internal  peace  of  Rome. 

Caesar  was  thus  left  free  to  complete  his  conquests  in  Gaul 
and  Britain.  It  has  already  been  noticed  how  each  succeed- 
ing campaign  seemed  more  remarkable  than  the  preceding. 
The  erratic  celerity  of  his  movements  made  him  seem  ubiqui- 
tous; and  it  would  have  been  strange  if  the  Gauls  had  not  at 
last  deemed  him  a  supernatural  being. 

While  thus  making  history  on  the  outside  margin  of  the 
then  known  world  he  was  becoming  a  stranger  to  Rome. 
The  patricians  never  ceased  to  misjudge,  underrate,  and 
undermine  him.  During  the  latter  half  of  his  second  term  as 
Proconsul  of  Gaul,  Cicero,  acting  with  the  patrician  Senate, 
was  meditating  how  to  neutralize  the  effect  of  Caesar's  grow- 
ing fame.  Pompey  was  jealous  or  envious,  and  drew  away 
from  the  alliance.  Crassus  had  been  killed,  and  his  Roman 
army  annihilated  in  Syria.  All  rival  interests  were  un- 
easy about  the  promise  made  to  Caesar  that  he  should  be 


PLATE  VIII 


HEAD  OF  POMPEY,  FROM  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  SPADA  PALACE,  ROME 


A    BRIEF    OF    CESAR'S    LIFE  31 

a  candidate  for  first  consul  in  Rome  at  the  end  of  his 
proconsulate  term.  Cato  and  Cicero  schemed  to  cheat  him 
out  of  it.  As  the  last  year  of  his  proconsulship  drew  near, 
combinations  were  made  against  him  in  Rome,  which  aimed 
first  to  deprive  him  of  the  army  of  Gaul,  and  then  to  a 
violation  of  the  promise  of  the  consulship.  Caesar  was  well 
advised  of  the  plotting,  and  expostulated  patiently  for  a  year 
with  his  false  friends  and  open  enemies,  on  the  injustice  of 
trying  to  strike  him  down  after  he  had  been  for  nine  years 
absent  from  the  capital,  adding  territory  to  the  domains  of 
Rome,  and  revenue  to  its  treasury.  At  last,  seeing  clearly 
that  it  was  the  plan  of  his  enemies  to  give  his  army  into 
the  command  of  another  general  before  his  appointed  term 
was  ended,  and  to  force  him  to  come  to  Rome  defenceless, 
where  his  life  would  be  at  the  mercy  of  any  hired  assassin, 
he  resolved  to  defend  his  rights  in  his  own  province,  and 
to  hold  the  army  to  protect  himself  while  appealing  to 
the  people  for  the  promised  consulship.  Cicero  and  the 
Senate  were  too  cowardly  and  too  vacillating  .to  carry  out 
their  intent ;  so  that  Caesar  was  not  forced  to  violate  any 
order  of  the  Senate,  or  do  any  unlawful  act  until,  find- 
ing that  his  friends  were  driven  from  Rome,  that  Pompey 
was  determined  to  prevent  his  coming  to  Rome  to  claim 
the  consulship,  he  did  at  last  cross  the  Rubicon  with  his 
army. 

The  Rubicon,  flowing  into  the  Adriatic  about  ten 
miles  south  of  Ravenna,  was  the  southern  boundary  of 
his  province  on  that  coast.  To  lead  his  army  beyond  that 
boundary  was  certainly  an  illegal  act.  It  caused  a 


32        PORTRAITURES   OF   JULIUS    CESAR 

fright  in  Rome  among  the  patricians.  Pompey,  the 
Senators  (among  them  Cicero)  and  great  numbers  of 
rich  patricians,  hurried  pell-mell  out  of  the  city  and 
crowded  the  roads  to  Brindisi.  The  great  Pompey,  and 
the  Senators,  instead  of  organizing  for  a  resolute  holding 
of  the  capital,  acted  more  like  guilty  men  evading  justice. 
It  was  a  common  sentiment  of  the  injustice  and  the 
indefensible  nature  of  their  plots  against  Caesar  that  made 
cowards  of  them  all.  The  latter,  on  the  other  hand,  was 
strong  in  the  consciousness  that  he  was  acting  within  the 
limit  of  his  equitable  rights.  Caesar  sent  emissaries  to 
Pompey  and  Cicero,  urging  them  to  reflect  that  he  wanted 
nothing  except  what  had  long  been  promised  by  them, 
and  by  the  Senate.  But  so  accustomed  had  the  higher 
classes  in  Rome  become  to  bloody  revenges  and  reprisals 
that  they  could  believe  nothing  good  of  Caesar.  They 
had  compromised  themselves  at  every  step  of  his  career 
by  their  opposition  and  reviling,  to  such  a  degree,  that 
they  could  not  comprehend  an  altitude  of  spirit  that 
absolutely  overlooked  them. 

Finding  all  his  advances  to  prevent  civil  war  were 
misconstrued  and  evaded,  he  quickened  his  march  toward 
Rome.  The  Pompean  forces  in  the  mountains  were  captured, 
the  officers  set  free,  their  baggage  sent  after  them,  and 
their  soldiers  joined  Caesar's.  Towns  opened  their  gates 
and  welcomed  him  as  he  advanced.  Pompey,  fleeing  toward 
Brindisi,  sent  an  order  to  the  Consuls  to  go  back  to 
Rome  and  bring  away  the  public  treasure.  But  they  had 
no  escort  of  soldiers,  and  feared  to  be  taken  themselves. 


A    BRIEF    OF    CESAR'S    LIFE  33 

When  the  kindly  feeling  of  Italy  toward  him  became 
evident,  Caesar  sent  a  last  messenger  to  the  Senators  to 
impress  upon  them  that  he  wanted  peace  and  not  civil 
war ;  and  to  Cicero  he  sent  word  that  he  would  willingly 
live  under  Pompey's  rule  if  he  could  have  guaranty  of 
his  personal  safety.  No  response  came  from  the  other 
side. 

Caesar  now  feeling  sure  that  Pompey  was  about  March  B  c 
to  embark  from  Brindisi,  with  command  of  all  the  49<  Agesi- 
Roman  fleets,  to  organize  armies  in  Macedonia  to  return 
with,  turned  away  from  Rome  and  hastened  southward  to 
intercept  him.  The  Senators  and  a  part  of  the  patrician 
army  had  already  passed  over  to  the  Grecian  side  of  the 
Adriatic.  Pompey  and  twelve  thousand  soldiers  were  wait- 
ing at  Brindisi  the  return  of  the  transports.  Caesar  tried 
to  prevent  their  embarkation,  but  Pompey  with  command 
of  the  sea  succeeded  in  escaping  with  his  whole  army. 
Caesar  gave  his  opponent  the  credit  of  a  plan  of  future 
campaign  such  as  he  himself  conceived.  Sicily,  Sardinia, 
Spain,  and  North  Africa  were  all  under  command  of  Pom- 
pey's generals.  Italy  drew  its  main  food  supplies  from 
those  countries.  It  could  be  starved  into  revolt  against 
Caesar  if  Pompey's  armies  held  possession  of  them.  He  sent 
energetic  officers  to  the  two  islands,  and  easily  secured  them. 
But  a  similar  effort  in  Nubia  (Carthage)  resulted  in  the 
defeat  of  his  lieutenant.  To  Spain,  where  Pompey's  forces 
were  formidable,  he  decided  to  go  himself,  and  leave  Pompey 
and  his  friends  unmolested  for  a  time  on  the  east  coast  of 
the  Adriatic.  Caesar  then  went  back  to  Rome,  which  he  had 


34        PORTRAITURES   OF   JULIUS   C^SAR 

not  seen  for  nearly  ten  years.  He  convened  the  remain- 
ing Senators,  and  addressed  them  on  the  engagements  that 
had  been  made  by  the  Senate,  and  the  Tribunes,  to  name 
him  for  election  to  the  consulship  on  the  expiry  of  his  ten 
years'  service  in  Gaul.  The  Senators  seemed  to  consider 
it  a  weakness  that  he  should  appeal  to  their  sense  of 
justice  in  the  matter,  and  grew  stiff-lipped  toward  him. 
He  had  only  the  option  to  declare,  that  since  they  would 
not  keep  their  promises  to  him,  and  govern  with  him,  he 
would  be  obliged  to  govern  without  them  ;  and  quickly 
organized  the  civil  and  military,  measures  necessary  to  the 
peace  of  the  capital,  and  the  control  of  the  provinces.  The 
public  treasury,  which  Pompey  and  the  senatorial  party  had 
fled  too  hastily  to  take  with  them,  was  under  the  control  of 
the  Caesar  government.  After  a  few  weeks  in  Rome  he  left 
the  capital  in  charge  of  Aurelius  Lepidus,  a  noble  Roman,  as 
Governor,  and  embarked  suddenly  for  Marseilles  with  a  small 
army,  to  organize  for  the  Spanish  campaign.  That  city 
closed  its  gates  against  him.  Its  commanding  officers 
were  appointees  of  Pompey  and  the  Senate's  Consuls. 
The  city  had  to  be  besieged  on  the  land  side,  and  boats 
built  to  fight  the  Pompean  fleet  in  the  harbour.  In  thirty 
days  his  fleet  was  built  and  victorious  at  the  harbour's 
mouth,  and  the  blockade  was  made  effective.  Caesar  then 
rushed  to  Spain,  having  previously  seized  the  passes  of  the 
Pyrenees.  But  an  effective  army  larger  than  his  own 
was  ready  to  meet  him.  In  this  campaign  all  his  mental 
resource  was  taxed  by  the  accidents  and  obstacles  of  nature ; 
but  in  forty  days  after  the  armies  first  confronted  each 


A    BRIEF    OF    CESAR'S    LIFE  35 

other  near  Lerida,  all  the  opposing  force  were  prisoners, 
or  incorporated  into  his  own  army.  He  pushed  on  to 
Cordova  and  captured  his  opponent's  treasure  and  stores, 
and  then  convened  the  chief  men  of  the  country  to  confer 
with  him.  Spain  secured,  he  returned  to  Rome. 

In  his  absence  Lepidus  had  procured  for  Caesar  the 
position  of  Dictator,  a  title  several  times  before  con- 
ferred by  the  republic  in  great  national  emergencies.  The 
popular  department  of  the  republic  elected  him,  but  with- 
out concurrence  of  Consuls  or  Senate.  Elected  irregularly 
by  popular  voice,  he  seemed  to  take  no  heed  of  friendships 
or  enmities  in  the  measures  he  boldly  entered  upon  to 
promote  a  return  to  the  normal  conditions  of  a  healthy 
peace  at  Rome.  Usury  was  checked,  but  not  by  a  can- 
cellation of  debts.  Debtors  were  relieved  of  the  portion  of 
their  debts  which  it  had  become  impossible  for  them  to  pay, 
but  not  more.  Laws  to  enforce  equitable  arbitration  were 
enacted,  and  rapidly  carried  into  effect,  and  the  surplus 
of  urban  population  was  encouraged  by  grants  of  unused 
land  to  become  yeomen  in  the  country.  After  a  short 
period  of  rapid  legislative  or  dictatorial  reforms,  every 
one  of  which  was  a  new  proof  of  his  singular  instinct  for 
broad  statesmanship  rather  than  partisan  measures,  he 
resigned  his  dictatorship,  and  was  elected  Consul,  together 
with  Servilius,  his  friend,  with  the  usual  legal  forms,  and 
for  the  very  term  which  had  been  promised  to  him.  He 
was  now  the  lawfully  elected  and  confirmed  executive  of 
the  government.  There  is  nothing  in  his  acts  to  show 
that  he  had  aspired  to  be  more. 


36        PORTRAITURES    OF   JULIUS    OESAR 

The  Roman  Empire  on  the  west  having  been  brought 
under  Caesar's  government,  he  was  now  free  to  carry  on 
BC  48  war  agamst  Pompey  and  the  refugee  consuls  and 
Age  52.  senators,  who  still  assumed  to  be  the  government. 
He  was  almost  powerless  at  sea.  Yet,  on  the  4th  of 
January,  in  the  fifty-second  year  of  his  age,  he  succeeded 
in  embarking  at  Brindisi  with  sixteen  to  twenty  thousand 
men.  Evading  Pompey's  admiral,  he  crossed  the  Adriatic 
Sea,  landed  without  trouble,  and  fortified  a  position  on  the 
west  coast  of  Epirus,  east  of  Brindisi.  Pompey,  with  three 
times  his  force,  in  numbers,  occupied  a  strong  position  north, 
near  Dyrachium  (now  Durazzo)  on  the  coast,  where  his  fleet 
could  assure  full  food  supplies  for  his  army,  and  luxuries 
for  all  the  wealthy  patrician  refugees.  Mark  Antony, 
who  was  to  elude  Pompey's  fleet  with  the  other  half  of 
Caesar's  army,  was  a  long  time  detained  in  Brindisi.  At 
last  he  succeeded  in  crossing,  but  was  obliged  to  land 
north  of  Pompey's  position,,  so  that  the  latter  with  his 
whole  army  was  between  the  two  small  armies  of  Caesar, 
and  ought  to  have  crushed  one  or  the  other.  He  was 
too  slow.  Before  he  moved,  Caesar  with  his  entire 
force  marched  around  Dyrachium  and  joined  Antony ! 
United,  they  were  only  about  half  the  number  of  Pompey's 
army,  but  they  drew  besieging  lines  around  it !  It  placed 
Pompey's  generalship  in  a  ridiculous  light  in  the  minds 
of  Greeks  and  Romans,  but  was  of  no  use  otherwise. 
Through  treachery  a  weak  point  in  the  besieger's  lines 
was  revealed  to  Pompey,  who  made  a  sally  so  vigorous 
that  it  inflicted  great  loss  to  Caesar's  army,  and  was  a 


A    BRIEF    OF   CESAR'S    LIFE  37 

partial  victory.  The  latter  soon  reoccupied  his  broken 
line,  but  not  long.  Seeing  that  Pompey  with  absolute 
command  of  the  sea  had  the  advantage  in  the  defensive, 
Caesar  skilfully  retreated  inland  to  the  fertile  fields  of 
Thessaly,  where  he  could  better  provide  for  his  army ; 
expecting  that  Pornpey  would  follow,  and  somewhere  be 
brought  to  battle.  He  did  so,  but  it  was  August  before  it 
was  brought  on.  The  celebrated  battle  of  Pharsalia  was  the 
result.  An  easy  victory  for  Caesar,  and  a  total  and  dis- 
graceful rout  of  the  patrician  forces. 

After  the  battle  the  victor  hurried  back  to  Rome  to 
organize  order  in  the  capital,  and  an  army  to  crush  the 
gathering  senatorial  forces  which  had  fled  to  Egypt. 
Poor  Pompey  had  been  treacherously  beheaded  in  the 
bay  of  Alexandria  by  order  of  Ptolemy,  father  of  Cleopa- 
tra, whom  he  himself  had  made  King  of  Egypt.  Caesar 
made  good  his  landing  in  Alexandria.  But  Ptolemy,  acting 
with  the  senatorial  forces,  shut  him  in  a  part  of  the  city 
including  the  outer  harbour.  As  in  a  hundred  other  most 
perilous  positions  into  which  his  boldness  led  him,  he 
extricated  himself  with  all  the  wariness  df  a  Fabius,  and 

with  the  unexpected  blows  of  a  Napoleon.     With  the  aid 

_ 

of  a  relieving  army  which  he  had  ordered  from  Syria, 
he  succeeded  in  drawing  the  whole  opposing  force  to 
Cairo,  and  there  defeated  it.  Egypt  was  at  his  feet. 
Cleopatra  and  her  brother  were  left  on  the  throne  as 
vassals  of  Rome.  The  diminishing  numbers  of  the 
senatorial  oligarchy  under  the  sons  of  Pompey  in  com- 
mand of  the  old  Roman  fleets,  and  Scipio  and  Cato  on 


38        PORTRAITURES   OF   JULIUS   C^SAR 

land,  escaped  to  Carthage.  Caesar  paid  no  immediate 
attention  to  them.  A  formidable  rising  against  the 
Romans  in  Syria,  and  the  defeat  of  one  of  his  generals, 
touched  his  Roman  pride.  Without  returning  to  Rome, 
where  his  friends  begged  his  return,  and  where  there  was 
sad  need  of  his  orderly  mind  and  commanding  will,  he 
hastened  with  but  fragments  of  an  army  to  the  assistance 
of  his  beaten  general.  Visiting  hurriedly  the  coast  towns 
in  Palestine  and  Syria,  his  presence  alone  quieted  the 
elements  of  revolt.  He  called  into  his  confidence  the 
leading  citizens  of  each  city  he  visited,  found  what  Roman 
troops  might  be  collected,  what  allies  might  be  called  on 
for  others ;  and  as  he  went  from  city  to  city  toward  the 
wily  Pharnaces,  King  of  the  Syrians,  he  created  an  army 
as  he  went.  Not  long  after  that  King  could  have  heard 
of  Caesar's  success  in  Egypt  the  ubiquitous  man  was  con- 
fronting him  with  a  Roman  army  south  of  Trebizond,  on 
the  head  waters  of  the  Euphrates  in  Armenia !  The 
Syrian  King  sent  Caesar  a  golden  crown,  and  dallied  with 
palaver.  The  latter  replied  by  seizing  a  strong  offensive 
position.  Pharnaces,  convinced  that  it  meant  "submit 
or  fight,"  boldly  anticipated  attack  by  attacking ;  and 
was  crushingly  defeated.  Caesar  was  thus  enabled  to 
leave  Syria  in  the  hands  of  a  general,  and  to  return  at 
once  to  Rome  via  the  Black  Sea  and  the  Bosphorus.  He 
must  have  arrived  not  a  long  time  after  the  news  of  his 
decisive  success  in  Egypt  had  reached  Rome ;  and  the 
further  news  that  he  was  again  lost  to  their  knowledge 
in  the  far  east,  near  the  shadows  of  Ararat. 


A    BRIEF   OF   CESAR'S    LIFE  39 

He  was  needed  in  Rome.  Disorders  of  all  kinds  were 
rife,  his  own  retired  soldiers  contributing.  The  violent 
were  hungry  to  seize  what  they  had  not  earned.  The  lazy 
voters  of  Rome,  the  successors  of  the  self-vaunted  Roman 
citizen  of  better  days,  long  accustomed  to  be  fed  out  of  the 
public  crib  by  the  patricians  who  thus  bribed  their  votes, 
demanded  some  special  favour  from  Caesar  for  their  support. 
Both  classes  were  ready  to  welcome  with  enthusiasm  a 
devil,  or  a  human  "  God,"  if  either  would  bring  free  bread, 
and  the  gay  brutalities  and  debaucheries  of  a  conqueror's 
triumph.  Caesar  paid  little  heed  to  any  faction ;  but  he  let 
the  people  know  that  order  is  heaven's  first  law ;  that  debts 
must  be  paid,  and  law  enforced,  where  Caesar  was.  Thus, 
after  three  campaigns  in  one  season,  in  so  widely  separated 
countries  as  Greece,  Egypt,  and  Armenia,  only  a  few 
months  of  the  year  were  left  to  quell  anarchy  and  enforce 
order  in  Rome.  In  his  absence  the  obsequious  Senate  had 
made  him  a  second  time  Dictator.  But  before  the  year 
was  ended  it  was  known  that  Scipio,  Cato,  and  Labienus, 
the  latter  once  Caesar's  ablest  general  in  Gaul,  were  organiz- 
ing a  formidable  army  in  Nubia  (now  Tunisia),  with  Carthage 
as  a  centre,  and  Pornpey's  sons  and  Scipio,  still  commanding 
Roman  fleets  on  the  Mediterranean.  The  migratory  Roman 
Senate  were  holding  sessions  in  the  city  of  Utica,  west  of 
Carthage,  which,  by  their  presence,  they  assumed  to  make 
the  capital  of  "  the  Roman  republic." 

At  mid-winter,  B.C.  47,  in  his  fifty-third  year,  Caesar  left 
Rome  with  such  legions  as  he  could  command,  evaded  the 
Pompean  fleets,  and  landed  at  Ruspinum,  a  point  in  Tunisia 


40        PORTRAITURES   OF   JULIUS    C^SAR 

south  of  Cape  Bon,  with  a  force  hardly  one-third  in  number 
of  those  he  went  to  crush.  He  at  once  fortified  a  position 
open  to  the  sea.  Here  he  studied  the  situation  of  his  oppo- 
nents, and  awaited  reinforcements.  His  quietness  em- 
boldened Scipio,  Cato,  and  Labienus.  They  began  to  hope 
that  he  was  in  their  power.  But  the  resources  of  the 
empire  were  now  at  his  command.  A  fleet  had  been  con- 
structed that  overawed  Pompey's.  Reinforcements,  long 
delayed,  came  at  last.  By  aid  of  the  fleet  he  transferred 
his  army  to  Thapsus,  a  point  on  the  coast  further  south,  to 
which  he  drew  the  enemy,  and  invited  attack.  It  came  on 
in  Oriental  fashion,  elephants  being  employed  to  bear  down 
on  the  Roman  lines.  The  method  of  their  use  had  been 
studied  by  Caesar  and  provided  against.  They  were  turned 
back,  so  that  their  huge  bulk  and  numbers  went  crashing 
through  the  army  they  had  been  trained  to  serve.  The 
rout  was  like  that  of  Pharsalia.  The  patricians  again 
became  fugitives  from  justice ;  flying  from  a  clement  con- 
queror who  had  never  intended  to  cut  off  their  heads,  or 
confiscate  their  properties,  or  deny  their  part  in  the  gov- 
ernment ;  but  only  wanted  them  to  return  home  and  help 
him  to  build  up  a  better  Rome.  Those  who  could,  fled 
to  Spain,  where  they  gained  a  temporary  foothold  and 
power. 

Caesar  returned  to  Italy  in  the  month  of  September, 
B.C.  47.  In  his  absence  serious  disorders  had  been  frequent. 
Senate,  Tribune,  and  citizens  alike,  felt  by  this  time  that 
the  turbulent  elements  of  bloody  civil  war  were  boiling 
everywhere  beneath  the  surface,  and  that  only  a  steady 


A    BRIEF    OF   CESAR'S    LIFE  41 

power  like  that  of  Caesar's  could .  prevent  national  perdi- 
tion. He  was  again  Dictator,  this  time  appointed  for  life, 
by  the  joint  action  of  the  Senate  and  the  Tribune.  But 
he  desired  some  special  authorization  for  work  not  usually 
expected  of  Consuls  or  Dictators  —  the  power  to  influence 
the  public  morals ;  and  he  was  appointed  Inspector  of  Public 
Morals.  He  set  to  work  to  purify  the  courts,  and  to  ele- 
vate the  standard  of  life  among  the  common  people.  At 
last,  supreme  in  Rome,  in  the  crater  of  the  slumbering 
volcano  of  civil  war,  in  the  midst  of  the  pestilential 
vapours  of  depraved  lives  and  murderous  ambitions,  his 
was  no  gay  triumph.  It  was  a  stern  call  to  work,  in  the 
midst  of  a  moral  pestilence.  He  found  a  Senate,  inert, 
complaisant,  treacherous ;  the  leaders  gone,  the  sedimen- 
tary mediocrity  left.  He  caused  those  stained  with  any 
crime  to  be  expelled ;  called  into  its  body  eminent  citizens 
from  some  of  the  provinces  of  the  Roman  dominion,  and 
continued  to  treat  the  Senators  with  the  consideration  due 
to  the  highest  deliberative  body. 

And  still  he  found  time  to  order  a  radical  revision  of 
the  system  of  marking  time.  The  twelve  lunar  months 
had  been  the  year,  with  the  result  that  each  moon  year 
was  twenty-nine  days  shorter  than  the  solar  year.  Up  to 
that  time  the  confusion  of  the  seasons  had  been  rectified 
from  time  to  time  like  an  over  fast  clock,  by  setting  back 
the  hands :  —  by  public  edict  of  the  high  priests  ordering 
a  fresh  start !  Caesar  had  met  in  Egypt  a  great  astrono- 
mer, Sosigenes,  by  whose  help  sun  time  was  inaugurated 
forty-six  years  before  the  birth  of  Christ.  It  was  by  vir- 


tue  of  his  office  of  Pontifex  Maximus  that  he  was  author- 
ized to  proclaim  this  great  change.  It  is  our  present 
calendar  system,  still  known  by  Caesar's  name,  as  the 
Julian-Calendar  time.  Thus  in  the  fifty-third  and  fifty- 
fourth  years  of  his  life  Caesar's  time  continued  to  be 
divided  between  daring  military  adventures  that  seem  the 
prerogative  of  youth,  and  the  broadest  statesmanship  of 
the  ripest  years.  Priest,  (whatever  that  may  have  meant) 
ladies' -man,  orator,  lawyer,  writer,  Tribune,  Quaestor,  Praetor, 
Pontifex  Maximus,  Judge,  Consul  —  one  or  another  he  had 
been  all  his  mature  life  before  receiving  his  appointment  as 
Proconsul  or  Governor  of  Transalpine  Gaul  and  Illyria  — 
before  his  military  career  began !  Never  before,  or  since, 
has  there  been  such  a  combination  of  all  the  powers  of  the 
human  mind  developed  on  such  a  stage. 

The  remainder  of  the  year  B.C.  47,  and  the  following 
year  B.C.  46,  having  mostly  been  devoted  to  the  duties  of 
government  in  Rome,  the  province  of  Spain  again  became 
the  theatre  of  an  ominous  gathering  of  all  the  odds  and  ends 
of  the  patrician  malcontents  and  Mediterranean  despera- 
does ;  with  Caesar's  old  general  Labienus  at  their  head. 
B.C.  45.  At  the  beginning  of  the  year  B.C.  45,  while  snows 
Age  55-  were  deep  on  the  mountains  of  south  Spain,  Caesar 
landed  an  army,  probably  at  Malaga,  and  found  his  way  to 
the  strongholds  of  Labienus,  in  the  valley  of  the  Guadal- 
quivir near  Cordoba.  Nature,  and  a  more  vigilant  opponent 
than  he  had  met  since  his  campaigns  in  Gaul,  conspired 
to  test  all  his  powers  of  mind  and  body.  Seven  years 
in  Caesar's  confidence  in  Gaul,  Labienus  was  familiar 


A    BRIEF    OF    CAESAR'S    LIFE  43 

with  every  form  of  Caesar's  military  genius,  and  had 
always  been  regarded  by  him  as  the  ablest  of  his 
generals.  It  was  the  hardest  on  Caesar  personally  of  all 
his  campaigns ;  and  though  it  resulted  as  usual  in  the 
total  defeat  of  the  last  military  stand  of  his  enemies  at 
the  battle  of  Munda,  it  could  not  but  have  strained  the 
vital  forces  of  his  life.  Fourteen  years  of  such  campaign- 
ing, after  a  man  is  middle  aged,  is  a  strain  on  human 
vitality  that  few  can  endure,  or  recover  from  when 
endured.  Contemporary  writers  state  that  his  health  in 
his  last  years  was  impaired,  and  suggestions  were  made 
that  his  constitution  was  weak.  The  latter  opinion  is 
absurd;  for  no  man  could  have  had  a  weak  constitution 
who  endured  what  he  endured,  and  did  what  he  did. 

Caesar  remained  all  summer  in  Spain,  restoring  uniform 
laws  and  better  government,  and  returned  to  Rome  to 
continue  the  same  work  of  statesmanship  there.  His 
first  act  was  to  issue  a  general  amnesty  for  political 
offences  against  himself.  He  carried  the  spirit  of  clem- 
ency toward  his  enemies  to  a  degree  that  suggests  the 
birth  in  his  mind  of  some  of  the  ethical  truths  which 
the  disciples  of  Christ  enunciated  among  the  Romans 
nearly  a  century  later.  There  seems  to  have  been  no 
reform  which  his  experienced  and  judicial  mind  regarded 
as  feasible,  to  build  up  a  better  character  in  the  Roman 
people,  which  he  did  not  have  grafted  into  the  laws, 
and  then  execute  so  far  as  it  was  in  his  power  to  do  so. 
Corinth,  Carthage,  and  other  desolated  cities  were  repopu- 
lated  by  Italians,  attracted  thither  by  Caesar's  measures. 


44        PORTRAITURES    OF   JULIUS   C^SAR 

The  waste  farm  lands  began  to  be  populated  anew  by  his 
encouragement  to  their  peaceful  possession.  The  provinces 
were  gratified  to  be  granted  representation  in  the  Roman 
Senate,  and  some  home  government  in  their  own  provincial 
assemblies.  Costly  amusements  for  the  citizens  of  Rome 
were  continued ;  but  this  was  only  a  necessity  of  the  time, 
to  keep  a  mass  of  citizens  pleased  and  quiescent,  who 
were  a  dangerous  source  of  interruption  while  he  was 
laying  broad  and  deep  the  foundations  for  a  better  city 
and  a  better  state.  All  practicable  reforms  were  being 
initiated,  and  put  upon  trial.  Ripe  in  wisdom,  satiated 
with  military  successes,  supreme  in  power,  it  seemed  that 
twenty  years  of  life  should  have  been  left  him  to  crystal- 
lize reforms,  and  to  carry  his  name  down  to  posterity 
as  the  greatest  and  wisest  of  men.  But  it  was  not  to 
be.  Assassination  and  murder  stole  the  livery  of  patriot- 
ism to  do  their  work.  Nowadays  we  think  of  these  horrid 
crimes  as  the  offspring  of  dens  of  vice  and  want.  But  in 
Rome  it  was  the  patrician  class,  the  stilted  Roman  Senators, 
who  made  of  their  Senate  chamber  a  den  of  infamy,  and 
within  its  stately  walls  concocted  that  plan  for  the  assassi- 
nation of  Caesar  which  has  no  counterpart  in  all  the 
annals  of  history.  When  the  young  tragedian,  J.  Wilkes 
Booth,  in  crazy  imitation  of  Brutus,  assassinated  Abraham 
Lincoln,  with  his  "  sic  semper  tyrannis "  flung  to  the  air, 
the  absolute  craziness  of  his  mind  threw  a  veil  of  charity 
over  the  horrid  act.  But  a  conspiracy  of  sixty  senators, 
with  Cicero  in  the  background  to  applaud  if  done,  and 
to  wash  his  hands  of,  if  not  successful,  is  an  event  that 


A    BRIEF    OF   CESAR'S    LIFE  45 

the  world  has  seen  but  once.  The  very  men  who  had 
sustained  his  acts,  who  had  voted  him  all  his  honours  with 
effusive  warmth,  who,  with  Cicero  as  their  spokesman, 
only  a  short  time  before  had  offered  their  own  bodies  as 
a  bulwark  against  any  harm  to  him,  some  of  them  his 
most  trusted  friends,1  named  in  his  will  as  his  executors, 
and  recipients  of  recent  appointments,  wrere  all  joined 
together  to  assassinate  him,  and  to  urge  his  coming  to 
the  Senate  for  important  business  in  order  to  accomplish 
their  horrid  work.  There  they  surrounded  him  in  defer- 
ential politeness,  with  daggers  under  their  togas,  and 
pleasant  words  on  their  lips,  until  the  signal  was  given. 
Then,  powerless  in  their  midst,  they  rushed  upon  him, 
pierced  him  with  twenty-six  dagger  thrusts,  and  he  wrapped 
his  toga  about  him  and  sank  in  death. 

Thus  in  the  fifty-sixth  year  of  his  life  he  perished,  at 
the  culmination  of  an  extraordinarily  eventful  career. 

It  is  comforting  to  know  that  the  common  people  of 
Rome  quickly  judged  and  condemned  the  assassins;  and  that 
every  one  of  them  within  a  few  years  died  such  deaths  as 
their  atrocious  act  merited.  It  is  not  so  pleasant  to  know 
that,  until  our  century,  historians  have  reflected  the  apologies 
of  the  patricians  for  the  acts  of  the  murderers,  and  have 
given  the  colour  of  patriotism  to  a  deed  not  a  whit  more 
justifiable  than  Booth's  assassination  of  the  good  Lincoln. 

It  is  one  of  the  saddest  denouements  in  all  history  that 
a  man  thus  gifted  with  all  the  qualities  that  appeal  to 
the  imaginations  and  ambitions  of  youth,  with  the  tem- 

1  Marcus  and  Decimus  Brutus. 


46        PORTRAITURES    OF   JULIUS   CESAR 

perance  of  a  philosopher,  the  logical  thought-fulness  of  a 
mathematician,  the  electric  energy  of  a  Napoleon,  and  the 
kindly  and  statesmanlike  common  sense  of  Lincoln,  should 
have  been  cut  off  at  a  time  when  the  depraved  Romans 
most  needed  his  strong  hand,  his  wise  head,  and  the 
conciliatory  spirit  which  was  the  glory  of  his  nature. 

Latin  literature  contemporaneous  with  Caesar,  and  still 
more,  the  echoes  of  it  that  came  after,  is  permeated  with 
stories  concerning  him  that  were  designed  to  cloud  the  honour 
of  his  common  life.  Witty  patrician  writers,  and  the 
debauched  dandies  of  his  time,  found  him  a  shining  mark 
for  their  vulgar  wit.  Caesar  as  a  society  man  was  recognized 
as  a  peculiar  favourite  among  ladies.  With  such  a  mother  as 
his,  and  living  with  her,  and  known  for  his  general  temper- 
ance, it  is  easy  to  see,  that  while  he  was  the  greatest  favourite 
with  cultivated  and  refined,  and  doubtless  beautiful  women, 
the  vulgar  dandies  found  no  favour  in  so  high  a  circle.  Envy 
would  prompt,  and  their  own  debauched  lives  would  suggest, 
to  impute  to  him  their  own  tastes  and  their  own  vices.  One 
hundred  and  fifty  years  after  his  death,  Suetonius  made 
volumes  of  the  preserved  gossip  and  traditions  of  the  most 
notable  men  of  the  Caesarean  era.  Malicious  stories,  "  cam- 
paign lies,"  concerning  Julius  Csesar,  that  floated  in  Rome 
among  his  enemies,  during  his  political  struggles,  multiplied 
while  he  lived,  and  took  root  in  tradition  after  he  died.  Those 
sallies  of  wit  and  malice,  and  vulgar  insinuations,  have  come 
down  to  us  as  biographical  facts.  Froude  analyzes  and  rejects 
most  of  them  as  improbable,  or  untrue ;  out  of  harmony 
with  conceded  facts  of  his  habits  and  his  life.  They  are  a 


A    BRIEF    OF    CESAR'S    LIFE  47 

part  of  that  unclean  gossip  which  never  dies  while  men  and 
women  live  whose  vulgarity  of  mind  cannot  conceive  of 
mental  and  physical  charms  above  the  level  of  the  vulgar; 
and  who  are  particularly  pleased  to  have  evidence  that  those 
who  are  far  above  them  are  of  the  same  unclean  clay  as 
themselves. 

Caesar  has  figured  in  literature  as  the  typical  destroyer  of 
republics.  Nothing  could  be  more  false  ;  because  in  his  time 
there  was  no  real  republic  to  destroy.  A  patrician  oligarchy, 
hereditary,  with  human  slavery  for  its  corner-stone,  called 
itself  a  republic,  and  was  in  fact  the  inheritor  of  the  power 
and  plunder  of  a  republic  which  it  had  smothered  before 
Caesar's  day.  The  robbery  of  conquered  and  subject  states 
supplied  a  part  of  the  regular  income  of  the  dominant  class, 
and  the  state's  treasury,  as  much  as  piracy  on  the  seas  makes 
an  income  for  pirates.  Julius  Caesar  made  a  brave  effort, 
almost  alone,  to  shape  legislation  so  as  to  undermine  the 
pernicious  prerogatives  of  that  class,  and  to  build  up  a 
broader  Roman  citizenship.  Between  the  barbarities  inherent 
in  the  feudal  system,  and  an  intelligent  democracy,  monarchy, 
dominating  the  smaller  feudal  lords,  has  always  come  in  to 
make  constitutional  government  possible.  Four  hundred 
feudal  lords  in  the  Roman  Senate  had  to  be  welded  with 
the  larger  mass  into  a  government  that  would  protect 
greater  interests  than  their  private  interests.  Caesar  felt 
in  himself  the  power  to  do  something  in  that  direction, 
and  did  it.  To  what  extent  he  might  have  succeeded,  if 
twenty  years  more  had  been  spared  him,  can  only  be  con- 
jectured. The  fact  stands  out,  that,  whenever  he  had  power 


48        PORTRAITURES   OF   JULIUS 

to  do  it,  he  laid  the  foundation  in  laws  to  make  a  fairer 
government  and  a  better  people.  If  he  was  planning  to  make 
power  hereditary  in  his  own  family,  it  was  with  an  honest  pur- 
pose and  belief  that  the  government  of  one  head  is  rarely  so 
mischievous  as  that  of  a  passionate  and  ignorant  city  popu- 
lace, or  that  of  an  octupus-like  oligarchy  which  he  dethroned. 
It  was  almost  as  true  of  Rome  during  the  early  lives  of 
Cicero  and  Caesar  as  in  the  reign  of  Nero,  what  Sienkiewicz 
in  Quo  Vadis  has  written :  "  Rome  ruled  the  world,  but 
was  also  its  ulcer.  The  odour  of  a  corpse  was  rising  from  it. 
Over  its  decaying  life  the  shadow  of  death  was  descending." 
Such  was  the  so-called  Roman  Republic  that  Caesar  was 
born  in ;  which  was  in  a  state  of  chronic  corruption  and 
dissolution  before  he  was  born,  which  all  the  energies  of 
his  life  were  exercised  to  arrest,  which  was  dead  before  he 
died,  and  which  sealed  with  foul  murder  its  own  annihilation 
while  placing  the  halo  of  a  martyr  on  its  best  citizen. 

Was  not  Caesar  unscrupulously  ambitious?  The  belief 
is  general  that  he  was.  I  think  the  judgment  unjust,  and 
mostly  unfounded ;  or  at  least  sadly  exaggerated.  That  he 
believed  in  himself,  and  the  usefulness  to  his  country  of  his 
own  projects,  and  backed  his  confidence  with  an  energy  of 
persuasive  force  that  enabled  him  at  times  to  overcome  all 
opposition,  is  true  enough.  But  that  he  was  scrupulous 
to  obtain  his  ends  in  a  lawful  way  is  also  true.  That  he 
had  unbounded  ambition  to  distinguish  himself,  and  to 
reach  power  in  the  state,  is  unquestioned.  But  that  can 
be  said  of  some  of  the  best  and  most  useful  of  great  men : 
alike  of  Martin  Luther,  William  of  Orange,  and  Peter  the 


A    BRIEF    OF    CESAR'S    LIFE  49 

Great,  of  Lord  Chatham  and  Wilberforce,  of  Cavour,  Bis- 
marck and  Thiers,  of  Lincoln  and  Gladstone.  The  object 
for  which  men  seek  wealth  or  power,  as  shown  by  the  way 
they  use  it  when  obtained,  will  generally  prove  whether 
they  be  high-minded  or  low-minded,  scrupulous  or  un- 
scrupulous. For  it  is  admissible  to  use  one's  superior 
and  dominating  personal  power  to  achieve  good  for  an 
entire  people;  while  to  use  the  same  power  for  one's 
own  personal  or  family  gain  might  be  only  blank  selfish- 
ness or  tyranny.  Herein  lies  the  difference  between  Caesar's 
life,  from  beginning  to  end,  and  the  lives  of  the  Napoleons 
—  I  and  III.  Caesar  never  sought  power  by  the  slaughter 
of  his  fellow  Romans,  nor  by  successive  perjuries,  nor  by 
the  unlawful  seizure  and  banishment  of  his  political  oppo- 
nents, or  by  violent  and  unlawful  assumption  of  all  power 
in  his  own  person,  and  the  perpetuation  of  it  in  his  own 
family.  Audacious,  as  the  events  of  his  life  illustrated 
more  and  more  as  he  grew  old,  it  was  a  boldness  always 
governed  and  guided  by  respect  for  every  form  of  law  that 
was  just  and  respectable.  He  aimed  to  re-build  the  "re- 
public "  of  Rome  without  destroying  it ;  beginning  by  lawful 
efforts  to  remove  its  tumors  and  its  barnacles,  then  by  adding 
great  domains  to  its  territory ;  then,  finding  no  help  among 
the  leaders  to  secure  and  maintain  justice  and  fair  laws, 
he  took  the  responsibility  which  all  others  shirked,  and  did 
his  best,  alone,  to  organize  a  good  government.  Assassina- 
tion was  the  reward  in  store  for  him ;  as  Froude  remarks, 
it  had  long  been  for  all  useful  and  distinguished  Romans. 
From  first  to  last  he  seemed  ever  scrupulous  to  achieve 


50        PORTRAITURES   OF   JULIUS   C^SAR 

his  work  within  the  law  ;  and  not  till  goaded  into 
it,  not  till  he  had  exhausted  every  effort  to  induce  his 
opponents  to  keep  their  promises  to  him  and  to  the  country, 
did  he  step  into  the  breach  between  anarchy  and  law  to  do 
what  the  Senate  refused  its  aid  in  doing  —  to  maintain  a 
government  for  his  country. 

It  is  assumed  to  be  a  slur  on  his  character  as  a  man  that 
he  went  deeply  into  debt  before  he  reached  middle  age,  in 
order  to  give  splendid  fetes  to  the  people  of  Rome,  and  to 
attract  to  himself  popularity,  and  their  suffrages.  But  do 
we  hear  that  the  money  lenders  of  that  time  loaned  him 
vast  sums  without  security  ?  Do  we  not  hear  that  his  own 
family  were  rich,  that  he  was  the  acknowledged  head  of 
that  family,  that  as  Pontifex  Maximus  he  had  a  considerable 
revenue,  and  therefore  had,  besides  what  landed  estate  he 
pledged  to  borrow  money,  an  income  to  pledge,  and  a  rising 
power  to  protect  his  creditors  by  a  genius  for  governmental 
leadership  on  which  they  leaned  for  additional  security? 
Personal  power  to  plan  great  things,  and  to  execute  them, 
is  always  an  element  of  credit  with  capitalists.  We  do  not 
hear  that  Caesar  afterward  failed  to  pay  all  his  debts,  or 
that  he  is  accused  of  breaking  promises,  or  of  deceitfulness, 
or  unfaithfulness  to  friends,  or  that  he  ever  slacked  or 
wavered  in  devoting  all  his  time  to  the  improvement  of  the 
Roman  people,  and  the  extension  of  their  power.  He  does 
not  by  treachery  and  perjury  make  himself  dictator  and 
emperor,  like  the  Corsican  who  assumed  to  wear  his  mantle. 
Lying  and  perjury  were  not  faults  of  Caesar.  But  it  may 
be  asked,  How  did  he  keep  his  great  creditor's  confidence, 


A   BRIEF    OF   CESAR'S    LIFE  51 

so  that  we  find  him,  after  the  return  from  his  governorship 
of  Spain,  stronger  than  before  ?  First,  I  think  it  safe  to 
assume  that  governors  of  provinces  like  Spain  were  paid  by 
a  lawful  commission  on  the  revenues  collected.  As  his 
administration  was  distinguished  by  an  increase  of  revenue 
turned  over  to  the  Roman  government,  we  can  see  here 
the  beginning  of  his  recovery  from  a  heavy  burden  of  debt. 
As  first  consul  in  Rome  for  one  year  following,  it  does  not 
seem  that  he  could  have  had  any  time  to  think  of  his  own 
private  fortune ;  so  busy  was  he  from  first  to  last  in  clinch- 
ing his  reformatory  projects.  But  when  his  wars  and  con- 
quests in  Gaul  began,  the  vastness  and  wealth  of  his  field 
of  operations,  and  the  laws  of  war  of  that  period,  placed 
in  his  hands  great  opportunities  for  the  acquirement  of 
wealth.  Prisoners  of  war  sold  as  slaves,  estates  confiscated, 
ransoms  exacted,  taxes  levied  —  all  joined  to  swell  reve- 
nues which  may  have  been  scrupulously  accounted  for  to 
the  Roman  government ;  while  his  own  lawful  commissions, 
and  those  of  his  generals  and  soldiers,  would  form  a  steady 
stream  of  wealth  to  them  privately.  Thus  we  account  for 
the  fact  that  after  a  few  years  in  Gaul  he  was  a  generous 
lender  to  his  friends.  But  this  is  no  cause  of  inference  that 
he  practised  any  unlawful  or  unscrupulous  power,  as  laws 
then  were,  and  as  public  opinion  then  was. 

In  English  speaking  communities  fair  judgments  of 
Caesar's  character  are  recurrently  neutralized  by  the  play 
of  Julius  Ccesar.  The  constant  misconception  of  him 
which  his  rivals  and  beaten  enemies,  the  Senate  party  in 
Rome,  infused  into  Roman  literature,  reverberate  through 


52        PORTRAITURES   OF   JULIUS   CESAR 

the  sonorous  speeches  or  the  light  inuendo  of  the  Shake- 
spearean dramatis  personce.  Even  supposing  the  play  to 
have  originated  in  Lord  Bacon's  erudite  mind,  it  would  be 
natural  enough  to  presume  that  he  would  take  the  "  con- 
current weight  of  testimony"  of  Caesar's  enemies  as  to  his 
character ;  the  more  so  as  it  furnished,  perhaps,  the  best 
material  to  make  the  play  effective.  One  gets  an  idea  of 
a  pompous,  strutting  Caesar,  from  that  play.  He  was  quite 
the  contrary.  The  speech  of  Mark  Antony  over  his  dead 
body  does  his  memory  most  eloquent  justice ;  but  it  does 
not  counteract  certain  false  impressions. 

More  than  from  the  play  itself,  which  is  perhaps  unsur- 
passed by  any  other  in  the  exhibition  of  the  great  genius 
of  the  author,  men  are  misled  concerning  the  personality 
of  Caesar  by  the  manner  in  which  some  English  actors  of 
great  prominence  distort  and  vulgarize  its  scenes  and  in- 
cidents. The  writer,  in  the  summer  of  1900,  witnessed 
a  performance  of  the  play  in  the  Queen's  Theatre,  London. 
The  star  actor  of  the  company  personated  Mark  Antony. 
In  the  scene  over  the  dead  body  of  Caesar,  in  which  he 
appeals  to  the  people  in  the  Forum  in  that  unrivalled  ora- 
tion which  the  genius  of  Bacon  or  Shakespeare  has  put  in 
his  mouth,  —  a  scene  among  the  most  sad,  thrilling  and 
woful  in  all  history,  —  the  silence  natural  in  the  presence 
of  an  awful  tragedy  is  represented  on  the  stage  like  a 
market-place  tumult  and  a  vulgar  riot.  Mark  Antony 
develops  into  a  Jack-in-the-box,  jumping  about  from  one 
place  to  another  as  if  to  incite  or  to  appease  a  Kilkenny 
mob.  Now  the  especial  friends  of  Caesar  in  Rome  were  the 


A    BRIEF    OF    CESAR'S    LIFE  53 

middle  classes.  The  solemnity  of  the  occasion  —  the  gath- 
ering in  love  to  rear  a  funeral  pile  to  burn  the  body  of 
their  dear  friend,  leader  or  master  —  had  drawn  all  the 
people  to  the  Forum.  Had  not  only  drawn  them,  but,  by 
all  concurrent  testimony,  had  drawn  them  together  in  a 
spirit  of  love  and  reverence  for  the  dead  leader,  and  horror 
at  the  manner  of  his  taking  off.  In  the  presence  of  that 
still  bleeding  corpse  they  would  naturally  give  ear  to  the 
burning  words  of  Mark  Antony's  eulogy  of  their  dead 
friend  with  awed  silence ;  as  in  the  presence  of  a  great 
horror.  A  mysterious  uncertainty  as  to  what  would  come 
next  hung  over  them  like  a  pall.  Those  who  remember 
the  stern,  taciturn  throngs  who  gathered  almost  speechless 
as  they  'looked  into  each  other's  faces  the  morning  the 
news  of  Abraham  Lincoln's  assassination  was  posted  in  the 
towns  and  villages  of  the  United  States  will  know  instinc- 
tively the  unnaturalness,  not  to  say  vulgarity  and  con- 
temptibleness,  of  representing  such  an  event  as  Caesar's 
funeral  in  the  Forum  with  the  confusion,  tumult  and  noisy 
brutality  of  a  London  or  an  Irish  mob. 

Justice  to  the  play,  as  well  as  to  the  great  subject 
of  it,  demands  not  simply  a  change,  but  a  complete  revo- 
lution of  ideas  concerning  the  personation  of  Julius  Caesar, 
to  insure  a  truthful  and  a  dignified  presentation  of  the 
incidents  of  the  great  tragedy.  The  spirits  of  Salvini  and 
Ristori  may  well  be  invoked. 


CHAPTER    III 

ANCIENT   STATUES   KNOWN   IN   THE  TIME    OF    AUGUSTUS, 
AND   BUSTS   SURMISED 

BERNOULLI,  in  his  great  work  on  Roman  Iconography, 
Vol.  1  (alluded  to  on  page  9),  when  treating  the  subject 
of  Julius  Caesar  portraitures,  remarks :  "  In  ancient  times 
there  must  have  been  erected  many  statues  in  honour  of 
Julius  Caesar,  during  the  short  time  of  his  supreme  power. 
It  was  even  resolved  or  decreed  to  erect  his  statue  in 
every  temple  of  Rome,  and  in  every  city  of  the  empire. 
But  it  is  quite  certain  that  owing  to  his  assassination 
soon  after,  but  few  of  them  could  have  been  completed. 
As  the  character  and  the  place  of  erection  of  these  statues 
are  possibly  of  importance  in  connection  with  the  identi- 
fication of  existing  statues,  of  which,  though  there  be  no 
proof,  we  may  hope  to  gather  evidence,  we  may  enumer- 
ate the  following :  — 

"  After  Caesar's  return  from  Africa  (46  B.C.)  among 
other  honours  decreed  to  him,  a  bronze  statue  was  ordered 
for  the  capitol,  with  a  globe  under  the  feet,  and  with  the 
inscription,  To  the  Demi-god.  He  himself  forbade  this 
inscription. 

"  The  following  year  during  his  absence  in  Spain  they 

54 


PLATE   IX 


JULIUS  OESAR:  STATUE  OF  THE  CAPITOLINE,  ROME 


ANCIENT   STATUES  55 

• 

added :  A  statue  of  ivory,  which  should  have  been 
erected  on  a  state  carriage,  adorned  with  paintings  of  the 
gods,  for  use  in  the  circensian  games. 

"Another  statue  was  in  the  temple  of  Quirinus,  with 
the  superscription :  To  the  invincible  God. 

"A  third  (perhaps  the  same  as  the  one  decreed  the 
year  before)  also  on  the  capitol  under  the  kings,  where 
the  one  of  Brutus  the  elder  stood. 

"  Soon  many  more  were  added,  among  which  two  on 
the  platform  with  wreaths  of  oak  leaves  and  grass,  the 
one  to  indicate  him  as  the  saviour  of  his  fellow-citizens, 
the  other  the  saviour  of  the  town.  One  of  them  was  the 
one  upon  which  a  tribune  of  the  people  set  a  diadem,  to 
make  the  republicans  suspect  and  hate  him.  A  short 
time  after  Caesar's  death  there  seemed  to  have  been 
erected  a  third  one,  by  Mark  Antony,  with  the  in- 
scription :  Parents  optime  merito  —  which  roused  Cicero's 
anger. 

"Again,  in  the  time  of  his  dictatorship,  an  armour- 
clad  statue  was  erected  in  the  Forum  which  he  founded 
(most  likely  an  equestrian  statue)  identical  with  the 
Equinis  Caesaris  of  gilded  bronze  in  front  of  the  temple 
of  Venus  Genetrix.  Statius  asserts  that  the  horse  belonged 
originally  to  a  statue  of  Alexander ;  but  according  to  Sue- 
ton  and  Plineus  it  was  more  a  representation  of  the  ab- 
normal hoof  formation  of  a  pet  horse  of  the  dictator. 

"  In  the  temple  of  Venus,  Augustus  erected  a  bronze 
statue  in  his  honour,  with  a  star  over  the  head  as  indica- 
tive of  his  transposition  among  the  gods. 


56        PORTRAITURES    OF   JULIUS   CLESAR 

"  In  the  temple  which  already,  during  his  life-time, 
had  been  decreed  to  Caesar,  in  common  with  dementia, 
stood  both  statues  touching  their  hands  —  Caesar  as 
Jupiter  Julius,  doubtless  of  heroic  size. 

"  Also,  in  the  chapel  of  the  Forum  especially  dedicated 
to  Julius,  which  Octavius  (Augustus)  had  erected  on  the 
spot  where  his  body  was  burned,  there  must  certainly 
have  been  a  statue  of  heroic  size. 

"  In  the  construction  of  the  Pantheon  Agrippa  put 
Caesar's  statue  in  the  inner  part  of  the  cupola ;  his  own, 
and  one  of  Augustus,  in  the  entrance  hall. 

"  On  the  bank  of  the  Tiber  stood  a  statue  of  C. 
Caesar  (it  must  mean  Julius  Caesar)  which  on  the  appear- 
ance of  Vespasian  is  said  to  have  turned  from  west  to  east. 

"  On  the  Isle  of  Chilos  an  inscription  has  been  found 
of  the  year  47  B.C.,  which  dedicates  a  statue  of  Caesar  to 
the  gods. 

"  Under  the  temples  which  had  been  erected  to  Caesar 
in  the  provinces,  those  of  Ephesus  and  Nikaea  were  the 
most  showy  in  the  time  of  Augustus. 

"  Cleopatra  built  a  chapel  in  Alexandria  with  a  right 
of  asylum  in  memory  of  Caesar. 

"  Christodor  mentions  a  statue  of  Caesar  with  ^Egis 
and  lightning  at  Zeuxipos  near  Constantinople ;  also 
called  a  Jupiter  Julius." 

Such  are  the  statues  which  Bernoulli's  erudition  has 
listed  for  us,  mentioned  or  described  by  one  or  another 
Latin  author  during  the  century  and  a  half  following 
Caesar's  time.  That  busts  in  great  number,  as -well  as 


ANCIENT   STATUES  57 

statues  of  lesser  importance,  or  less  conspicuously  placed, 
but  not  perhaps  of  inferior  portraiture,  must  have  sprung 
into  existence  in  great  numbers  in  sculptors'  studios  dur- 
ing the  short  period  of  his  absolute  supremacy,  cannot  be 
doubted.  That  his  assassination  put  a  stop  for  a  time  to 
further  work  upon  them  is  probable.  But  as  his  assas- 
sins were  speedily  under  the  ban  of  popular  execration,  as 
his  body  was  burned  in  the  Forum  with  stately  funeral 
ceremonies,  and  with  the  worshipful  tumult  of  a  deeply 
felt  public  mourning,  while  the  city  remained  in  the 
possession  of  his  friend,  Mark  Antony,  it  is  not  to  be  sup- 
posed that  the  statues  and  busts  of  him  then  completed, 
or  the  models  and  the  sculptural  work  already  in  hand 
in  sculptors'  studios,  were  lost.  On  the  contrary,  his 
death  made  them  only  the  more  valuable,  and  the  more 
to  be  cherished.  The  period  of  struggles  between  the 
senatorial  assassins,  with  Cicero  waiting  in  their  shadow, 
and  the  rival  forces  of  Mark  Antony  and  the  young 
Octavius  (Augustus),  lasted  less  than  two  years.  When 
that  was  ended  by  the  triumph  of  the  latter,  there  was 
no  further  danger  that  the  homage  of  sculptors  to  the 
dead  Caesar  could  in  any  way  injure  them,  if  they  com- 
pleted the  works  in  their  studios.  There  was  hope,  on  the 
other  hand,  that  commissions  for  statuary  work,  given 
while  Caesar  was  alive,  might  yet  be  paid  for,  and  that 
busts  of  the  "Divine  Julius"  would  soon  be  in  great 
demand.  Fourteen  years  after  his  death  Caesar's  adopted 
son,  Octavius,  then  the  Emperor  Augustus,  was  at  the 
head  of  the  government  of  all  the  empire  of  Rome. 


58        PORTRAITURES   OF   JULIUS   C^SAR 

That  statues  of  Julius,  and  busts  of  all  sizes  and 
materials,  multiplied  during  his  long  reign,  is  more  than 
probable.  It  is  interesting  to  conjecture  the  material 
which  Italian  sculptors  then  had,  for  arriving  at  life-like 
portraitures.  The  coins,  numerous  enough,  and  then 
fresh  from  the  mint,  stood  for  something.  Those  which 
have  come  down  to  us  are  mostly  the  bronze,  copper,  and 
silver  ones,  which  were  generally  bungling  specimens  of 
effigy  work.  A  few  gold  ones,  the  real  antiquity  of  which 
is  not  quite  assured,  are  in  some  museums ;  but  I  have 
seen  none  which  have  better  heads  than  a  few  of  those 
on  the  cheaper  coins.  That  there  were  better,  both  on 
gold  coins  and  medallions,  I  do  not  doubt.  But  gold  is 
not  a  metal  to  hold  its  impressions  well,  like  silver  and 
bronze,  and  when  defaced  by  wear  was  likelier  to  go  to 
the  melting  pot  for  recoining,  or  for  mechanical  uses. 
If  recovered  in  good  preservation  during  the  Middle  Ages, 
the  fact  of  having  Julius  Caesar's  head  on  one  side  would 
not  then,  as  now,  have  saved  them  from  sale  as  gold 
only.  I  have  already  indicated  little  confidence  in  the 
perfectness,  as  profiles,  of  any  one  of  the  coin  effigies.  If, 
in  the  Caesarean  days,  there  were  better  ones,  they  would 
doubtless  have  continued  to  influence,  in  some  degree, 
the  busts  of  bronze  and  marble  modelled  after  his  death. 
But  I  believe  that  busts  had  been  made  of  Julius 
Caesar  before  the  years  when  his  head  was  subjected  to 
all  sorts  of  caricatures  on  coins.  A  boy  who  could  have 
been  chosen  at  the  age  of  sixteen  for  the  office  of 
high  priest  of  Jupiter,  must  have  had  something  very 


ANCIENT    STATUES  59 

promising  written  on  his  front.  When  we  find  almost 
every  after-year  of  his  life  marked  by  singular  instinct 
of  leadership,  and  striking  adventures,  when  we  know 
that  he  rose  step  by  step  through  every  important  elec- 
tive office  in  the  Roman  civil  service,  until  at  the  age  of 
forty-one  he  was  elected  First-Consul,  then  the  highest 
position  in  the  republic,  we  have  reason  to  believe  that 
he  was  prominent  enough,  and  popular  enough,  to  be  the 
subject  for  busts  at  that  time.  Italy  was  then,  as  now, 
a  land  of  sculpture.  Statues  and  busts,  in  some  degree, 
then  took  the  place  of  paintings,  engravings,  photographs 
and  books,  in  perpetuating  the  memory  of  great  or  con- 
spicuous men.  Caesar's  year  as  consul  was  a  memorable 
one  from  a  statesman's  point  of  view ;  and  he  was  more 
completely  head  of  the  Roman  Empire  in  that  one  year 
than  when,  ten  years  later,  he  had  crossed  the  Rubicon 
with  his  army,  to  be  made  successively  Dictator,  First- 
Consul,  and  at  last  Dictator  Perpetual. 

The  Senate,  made  up  largely  of  patrician  debauchees, 
Caesar  had  always  held  in  contempt  for  its  corruptness, 
and  its  uselessness.  Outside  of  it  he  strove  to  curb  its 
powers ;  and  in  it  to  lessen  its  license  by  his  own  dignity 
of  speech  and  bearing.  It  feared  him,  and  never  except 
through  fear  honoured  him.  No  souvenirs  in  his  honour 
so  permanent  and  conspicuous  as  statues  were  likely  to 
have  been  ordered  by  them  until  after  he  became  Consul 
the  second  time ;  but  busts  must  surely  have  been  made 
of  him  when  he  was  First-Consul.  They  would  then  have 
been  the  natural  embellishment  of  some  of  the  public 


60        PORTRAITURES   OF   JULIUS   C^SAR 

buildings.  One  in  his  own  palace  would  have  been 
natural.  He  had  wealthy  friends  who  were  likely  to 
order  copies  of  any  really  good  bust  of  him.  The  middle 
classes  of  Rome  who  had  supported  him  with  their  votes 
by  remarkable  majorities  during  all  the  years  in  which 
he  had  been  promoted  by  their  suffrages,  would  naturally 
have  created  some  demand  for  good  copies  in  marble, 
bronze,  and  plaster.  Thus,  before  his  military  career 
began,  we  have  reason  to  believe  that  good  busts  of  him 
had  been  made :  —  when  he  was  in  the  prime  of  life, 
when  he  had  not  lost  his  hair,  or  his  best  looks.  In 
those  years  there  would  have  been  no  thought  of  flattery 
by  giving  him  poses,  or  plumping  him  to  make  him  look 
the  conventional  Imperator,  or  Emperor,  or  a  demi-God. 
His  friends  would  then  have  required  the  most  life-like 
of  sculptural  work.  Bad  portraits  would  not  have  been 
saleable.  The  original  was  on  the  streets,  in  the  as- 
semblies, to  be  seen  of  all  men.  Nothing  remains  that 
quite  fills  our  ideals  of  what  Caesar  may  have  been  at  that 
time.  No  bust  or  statue  quite  conveys  the  impression  of 
that  stately  and  superior  personal  presence  that  all  his 
contemporaries  agree  in  ascribing  to  him.  But  the  works 
that  most  nearly  represent  that  period  of  his  life,  I 
imagine,  are  the  bust  No.  107  in  the  Chiaramonti  gallery 
of  the  Vatican  (our  No.  6,  Chap.  VI)  and  the  Pisa  bust,  of 
which  both  the  noses  are  wholly  or  partly  restorations. 

After  the  consulship  came  a  complete  change  in  his 
life;  his  marvellous  military  career  —  nine  years  away 
from  Rome  —  in  Gaul,  Belgium,  and  Britain.  His  dis- 


ANCIENT   STATUES  61 

coveries,  his  conquests,  the  surprising  victories  in  strange 
countries  with  all  odds  against  him,  his  own  narratives 
published  in  Rome,  as  remarkable  for  their  terse  sim- 
plicity and  truthfulness  as  his  campaigns  were  for  all 
the  elements  of  military  daring,  all  conspired  to  keep 
him  in  remembrance  in  Rome  ;  also  to  make  him 
more  feared  and  hated  than  ever  by  the  patrician  Senate. 
Absence  was  also  a  cure  for  love  with  the  populace. 
New  leaders  in  Rome  were  glad  to  have  the  old  leader 
away:  —  inferior  and  violent  men,  who  nevertheless  oc- 
cupied the  public  mind  completely  with  the  new  excite- 
ments of  their  personal  struggles.  During  that  period 
it  is  not  supposed  that  either  Senate  or  Tribune  ordered 
statues  or  busts  of  Caesar.  The  former  wished  him  dead, 
and  the  new  popular  leaders  had  no  interest  in  keeping 
too  much  alive  memories  of  an  old  leader.  Yet,  when  we 
remember  that  every  autumn  or  winter  Csesar  returned 
from  Gaul  to  hold  court  in  his  capitol  in  the  valley  of 
the  Po,  and  to  administer  all  the  civil  as  well  as  the 
military  government  of  northern  Italy  and  Illyria.  in 
addition  to  the  vast  new  conquests,  we  must  realize  that 
he  was  the  conspicuous  head  of  a  great  sub-empire.  In 
his  provincial  capitol  he  was  supreme  as  Governor,  with 
unlimited  power ;  and  supreme  in  another  sense  —  by 
reason  of  his  own  accomplishments.  It  is  hardly  to  be 
supposed  that  he  had  not  an  environment  of  artistic 
and  literary  men.  The  latter  were  welcomed  even  in 
his  camps  in  northern  Gaul.  The  former  could  hardly 
have  been  absent  from  his  winter  capitol.  They  could 


62        PORTRAITURES   OF   JULIUS    OESAR 

not  have  been  without  enthusiasm  to  portray  the  linea- 
ments of  a  man  who  had  already  illustrated  every  phase 
of  intellectual  greatness.  Busts  must  have  been  executed 
of  him  at  this  time,  and,  I  think,  of  the  type  represented 
by  the  bust  in  the  Vatican  already  mentioned.  The  Tre- 
soria  bust  of  Florence  (our  No.  28)  and  the  Cologne  bust 
are,  I  think,  other  examples.  These,  if  not  all  antiques, 
may  be  copies  of,  or  studies  from  those  of  his  own  time. 
The  fact  that  this  type,  to  this  day,  are  principally  found 
in,  or  obtained  from  northern  Italy,  is  slightly  significant. 

During  the  six  campaigns  in  the  four  years  after  crossing 
the  Rubicon,  in  Spain,  Greece,  Egypt,  Syria,  Carthage,  and 
again  in  Spain,  he  was  lawful  head  of  the  Roman  Empire. 
It  would  be  reasonable  to  suppose  that  in  Greece,  Syria, 
and  Egypt,  as  well  as  in  Italy,  Gaul,  and  Spain,  every 
sculptor  would  have  been  ambitious  to  make  popular 
busts  of  the  hero  who  was  in  all  men's  minds.  While 
he  was  engaged  away  from  Rome  the  Senate  and  the 
Tribune  ordered  statues  in  his  honour,  as  shown  in  the 
beginning  of  this  chapter.  Busts  were  not  stately  enough 
to  be  ordered  by  the  public  bodies.  But  that  artists' 
studios  were  full  of  studies  and  models  of  Caesar's  head 
after  the  battle  of  Pharsalia,  there  can  be  no  doubt ;  nor 
that  they  afterward  became  finished  works  in  marble 
and  bronze,  and  competed  for  popular  favour. 

Bernoulli  seems  to  believe  that  the  colossal  bust  of 
Naples  (PI.  1,  Chap.  I)  and  the  Conservatori  statue  of 
Rome  at  the  head  of  this  chapter  were  works  of  Augustus's 
time.  Both  bear  evidence  of  the  influence  over  sculptors 


ANCIENT   STATUES  63 

to  make  them  show  the  divine  Julius  with  a  beaming 
repose  and  serenity,  supposed  to  be  god-like,  rather  than 
to  represent  the  thin  cheeks  and  the  expressive  lines  of 
thought  arid  character  which  would  have  brought  us 
nearer  to  the  real  man.  Therefore,  however  much  we 
value  the  Naples  bust  and  the  Conservatori  statue,  as  the 
ripe  and  careful  studies  of  artists  who  had  everything 
before  them  that  had  previously  been  done  in  sculptural 
portraiture,  their  sculptors  were  just  enough  warped  by 
the  necessity  of  making  an  imperial  presence,  and  a  god- 
like repose,  to  induce  them  to  subordinate  striking  facial 
peculiarities  to  that  object.  For  this  reason  I  would  sur- 
mise that  the  busts  made  of  him  when  he  was  First-Consul, 
or  while  he  was  Governor  of  Cisalpine  Gaul,  were  better 
than  subsequent  ones.  Are  there  any  preserved  ?  If  so, 
which  ones  are  they  ?  We  can  only  conjecture.  We  have 
only  circumstantial  evidence.  That  evidence  I  seek  to 
show  in  this  monograph.  At  the  end  of  two  thousand 
years  we  still  await  new  discoveries  to  confirm  or  correct 
our  present  judgments. 


CHAPTER  IV 
WHY  ANTIQUE  BUSTS  OF  JULIUS  CAESAR  ARE  RARE 

BEFORE  entering  on  a  comparison  of  the  statues  and 
busts  of  Caesar  which  I  have  been  able  to  study  and  illus- 
trate, it  may  not  be  out  of  place  to  suggest  some  of  the 
reasons  why  these  mementos  of  him,  once  so  numerous, 
are  now  among  the  rarest  of  Roman  antique  portraitures. 
Of  Augustus,  his  nephew  and  successor,  the  busts  and 
statues  representing  him  in  youth,  in  mid-life,  and  in  later 
years,  are  innumerable.  Each  of  the  emperors  following 
are  found  abundantly  in  marbles  and  bronzes  of  excellent 
workmanship.  Nero,  Caligula,  and  the  like,  were  lively 
patrons  of  art  in  statues  of  themselves.  Even  the  phi- 
losopher Seneca  seems  to  have  been  so  great  a  favourite  of 
the  sculptors  of  Nero's  time  that  there  is  no  Roman  who 
has  been  so  picturesquely  brought  down  to  the  eyes  of 
modern  times.  Statues  and  busts  of  Julius  Caesar  must  have 
been  far  more  numerous  in  Augustus's  time  than  those  of 
any  other  Roman ;  yet  those  identified  as  of  his  own  time 
are  now  few  compared  with  the  pieces  which  are  known  to 
have  personated  the  later  Emperors. 

May  not  the  reasons,  in  part,  for  the  rarity  of  authentic 
Julius  Caesar  busts  be  these :  that  during  the  decline  of 
Rome,  which  commenced  a  few  centuries  only  after  Julius's 

64 


PLATE   X 


HEAD  OF  JULIUS  C^ESAK  AS  PONTIFEX  MAXIMUS  :  MUSEUM  CHIARAMONTI, 
VATICAN,  ROME 


EARLY    DESTRUCTION    OF    STATUES       65 

death,  hordes  of  the  northern  nations  who  sacked  Rome 
had  traditional  memories  of  the  redoubtable  conqueror 
who  had  humbled  them  and  their  kings,  burned  their 
towns,  destroyed  their  armies,  and  made  their  little  nations 
the  vassals  of  Rome  ?  Why  should  not  their  leaders  de- 
light to  hurl  his  statues  from  their  bases,  and  break  them 
in  pieces:  —  his  more  than  all  others?  More  easily  still, 
the  marble  busts  could  be  visited  with  indignities,  and 
when  not  smashed,  would  at  least  have  their  noses  knocked 
off.  The  bronzes  could  be  at  once  utilized  by  breaking 
up  and  selling  the  metal,  or  might  be  carried  back,  as 
trophies,  to  the  homes  of  the  northern  conquerors,  to  be 
lost  in  succeeding  ages.  Imagine  such  inroads  made  on 
Italian  cities  century  after  century  for  a  thousand  years ! 
How  few  of  all  its  art  treasures  in  temples,  palaces,  public 
places,  and  villas,  could  survive  those  ages  in  which  Italy 
became  a  camping  ground  for  the  armed  hordes  of  the 
north.  The  absence  of  noses,  in  nearly  all  recovered 
Roman  heads  in  marble,  is  only  an  illustration  of  the 
universal  instinct  of  animal  man  to  smash  something, 
when  it  risks  him  nothing.  The  nose  is  certainly  the 
easiest  part  to  abuse  in  passing.  Toward  Julius  Caesar's 
statues  and  busts,  the  earliest  vandalism  may  have  been 
particularly  directed ;  and  toward  all  others,  destructive- 
ness  was  afterwards  but  pla}^. 

Again,  after  the  northern  invasions  were  well  over, 
when  a  bloody  and  mouldy  pall  had  fallen  on  Italy,  wrhen 
its  ruined  palaces  became  quarries  for  building  ever  poorer 
and  poorer  houses,  when  marble  statues  were  burned  to 


66        PORTRAITURES   OF   JULIUS    C^SAR 

make  quicklime  for  mortar,  and  bronzes  were  hunted  for 
bell  metal,  it  seems  but  natural  that  what  the  northern 
barbarians  left  undestroyed,  the  equally  barbarous  and 
humbled  Italians  continued  to  destroy.  The  remains  of 
a  pagan  civilization  became  marks  for  Christian  barbarism 
to  strike  at.  The  Roman  hierarchy  were  efficient  agents 
in  destroying  images  of  the  earlier  Roman  rulers  who  had 
fed  wild  beasts  in  the  arenas  with  the  bodies  of  Christians. 
They  did  not  stop  to  think,  or  care  to  know,  that  our 
Julius  was  not  one  who  persecuted  for  opinions,  and  that 
his  life  ended  in  martyrdom,  because  he  was  a  reformer, 
three  quarters  of  a  century  before  the  death  of  Christ.  In 
connection  with  the  retaliatory  destruction  by  the  Chris- 
tian hierarchy  of  Rome,  in  the  early  centuries,  of  the 
memorials  of  rulers  who  had  persecuted  the  Christians,  it 
is  interesting  to  note  that  the  office  of  Pontifex  Maximus, 
or  Pope  of  Rome,  was  the  name  of  the  highest  ecclesiastical 
office  of  the  Pagan  church  for  centuries  before  Christ; 
and  that  one  of  the  most  interesting  supposed  antiques  of 
Julius  Caesar  in  the  Vatican  is  the  one  opposite  the  head 
of  this  chapter,  representing  him  in  the  old  Roman  head- 
dress of  Pontifex  Maximus ;  which  position  he  held  for 
nearly  twenty  years.  The  pontificate  was  then  conferred 
by  a  popular  vote  of  the  free  citizens  of  Rome. 

In  Asia  Minor  and  Constantinople,  in  Greece,  in  all 
the  cities  on  both  sides  of  the  Bosphorus,  and  in  Egypt 
and  Carthage,  a  final  cause  of  the  disappearance  of  busts 
and  statues  of  the  Romans  was  the  overrunning  of  all 
those  great  countries  by  the  wave  of  Mahomedanism.  It 


A    MOSLEM    WAVE    OF    DESTRUCTION      67 

is  a  tenet  of  that  faith  to  abjure  images  of  men  and 
women  as  a  kind  of  idolatry,  and  not  to  tolerate  them. 
The  Moslems  met  and  turned  back  all  Europe  in  arms 
against  them  during  the  crusades ;  first  on  the  fields  of 
Syria,  and  then  across  the  Bosphorus  through  Macedonia 
and  the  Balkan  States  to  Belgrade  on  the  east,  and 
through  Spain  to  the  plain  of  Tours  in  France  on  the 
west.  They  occupied  the  whole  of  northern  Africa.  Now, 
Caesar  had  been  almost  as  well  known  in  Syria  and  Mace- 
donia, in  Egypt,  Carthage,  and  Spain,  as  in  Italy ;  and 
doubtless  his  busts  graced  the  homes  of  hundreds  of  his 
friends  and  admirers  in  their  cities  and  villas.  But  that 
was  about  a  thousand  years  before  the  Moslem  wave  over- 
whelmed the  remains  of  the  Roman  Empire ;  time  enough 
for  the  disappearance  or  destruction  of  a  considerable 
part  of  such  souvenirs.  Moslem  fanaticism  concerning 
human  images,  it  is  easy  to  believe,  would  be  pretty  sure 
to  destroy  the  remainder.  Thus  it  is  to  Italy,  the  only 
Mediterranean  country  not  overrun  in  part  by  the  Ma- 
li omedans,  that  the  main  part  of  the  antique  souvenirs  of 
Caesar  that  still  exist,  are  to  be  credited.  There  is  always 
hope  that  more  may  yet  be  discovered  in  some  of  the 
countries  surrounding  the  historic  sea. 


CHAPTER   V 
PORTRAITS  FROM  LIFE,  OR  POSTHUMOUS  WORKS 

WHETHER  a  bust  or  a  statue  is  made  from  life,  or  is 
a  composite  work  made  after  death  from  portraits  made 
during  the  life,  modified  and  influenced  by  information 
to  be  gained  from  acquaintances  of  the  subject,  and  from 
the  literature  of  his  time,  is  not  so  vital  a  difference  as 
to  insure  the  supreme  value  of  the  former,  or  to  prove  the 
inferior  value  of  the  latter.  Commonplace  artists  make 
poor  likenesses  from  life,  and  great  artists  sometimes  make 
life-like  portraits  of  deceased  persons  whom  they  have 
never  seen.  The  best  statuary  and  painted  portraits  of 
Napoleon  I  have  been  made  since  his  death.  The  medal- 
lions of  him  that  may  be  seen  in  great  variety  in  the 
Cabinet  des  Medailles,  BibliotJieque  Nationale  of  Paris, 
taken  in  the  years  1796  to  1813,  and  from  his  twenty- 
eighth  to  his  forty-fifth  year,  vary  almost  as  curiously 
from  each  other,  as  the  Caesar  heads  on  preserved  Caesar- 
ean  coins.  But  with  this  difference :  that  the  French 
medallions  are  mostly  large,  executed  by  accomplished 
artists,  and  are  perfectly  preserved ;  while  the  Roman  coins 
were  inferior  art-work  to  begin  with,  and  are  on  small 
coins,  worn  and  corroded  by  time.  But  if  better  portraits 
of  Napoleon  have  been  made  since  his  death  than  any 

68 


PLATE  XI 


COLOSSAL  BUST  OF  JULIUS  CAESAR,  EXECUTED  IN  THE  REIGN  OF  Louis 

XIV,    AND   EXHIBITED   IN   THE   PARIS   EXPOSITION   OF   1900 


A   COMPARISON  69 

made  in  his  life-time,  it  is  because  sculptors  and  painters 
were  enlightened  by  all  previous  work.  Canova,  great- 
est of  modern  sculptors  in  rivalling  the  glories  of  Greek 
antiques,  for  whom  Napoleon  sat,  made  a  statue  and  a 
bust  of  him  inferior  to  several  that  have  been  made  since. 
He  was  too  near.  He  was  not  under  the  necessity  to 
mould  character,  and  was  hampered,  as  well  as  aided,  by 
the  form  in  the  flesh  before  him.  If  the  sculptor,  in 
modelling  the  head  of  a  deceased  person,  has  a  death- 
mask  to  guide  him,  as  to  the  unchangeable  bones,  then 
previous  portraits,  the  biography  of  his  subject,  and  his 
own  genius,  if  he  have  genius,  will  supply  the  rest.  Thor- 
waldsen,  with  all  previous  work  before  him,  made  one  of 
the  noblest  of  all  portraits  of  Napoleon.  A  copy  of  this 
may  be  seen  in  the  Bust  Gallery  of  the  Crystal  Palace 
of  Sydenham,  near  London,  as  well  as  in  the  Thorwaldsen 
Museum  of  Copenhagen.  Another  similarly  noble  post- 
humous work  is  No.  50  of  the  Metropolitan  Museum  of 
New  York,  in  bronze,  by  Launt  Thompson.  The  play  of 
the  muscles  which  express  the  soul  in  action,  or  its  per- 
fect repose,  can  never  be  reproduced  by  a  sculptor  who 
has  not  the  genius  to  mould  in  clay  his  ideals  of  charac- 
ter, with  all  the  technical  skill  necessary  to  realize  his 
ideals.  He  must  dramatize  his  subject. 

Though  we  have  no  certainty  that  any  existing  busts 
or  statues  of  Julius  Caesar  were  executed  in  his  life-time, 
or  certainty  to  the  contrary,  we  have  such  a  mass  of 
corroborative  evidence  as  to  all  his  peculiarities,  through 
coins,  bronzes,  statues,  busts,  and  descriptions  of  him  by 


70        PORTRAITURES   OF   JULIUS   C^SAR 

his  intimates,  that  there  can  be  no  very  wide  divergence  of 
intelligent  opinion  about  what  must,  and  what  cannot,  in 
whole  or  in  part,  resemble  him. 

If  any  artist  of  his  time  gave  him  a  small,  mean  head, 
we  would  know  instinctively  that  that  was  a  poor  work. 
If  a  portraiture  fails  to  express  his  kindly  placidity  of 
temper  we  would  know  that  it  was  not  quite  good  of 
him.  If  it  failed  to  express  an  imperturbable  conscious- 
ness of  power  it  could  not  be  good.  If  it  failed  to  reveal 
under  its  placidity  a  vein  of  fearless  audacity,  curbed  by 
calm  powers  of  reasoning,  it  would  not  be  a  complete 
success.  Thus  we  have  a  key  to  separate  the  bad  from 
the  better,  and  the  better  from  the  best.  But  even  the 
best  may  not  be  as  good  as  the  best  ought  to  be.  If,  of 
many  mediocre  sculptors,  each  makes  a  realistic  success 
of  a  part  of  the  man,  these  parts  may  be  the  materials 
which  the  greater  artists  may  utilize  and  put  a  soul  into. 
Artists,  instinct  with  the  genius  to  study,  to  comprehend 
and  to  reproduce  on  canvas  or  in  marble  a  great  char- 
acter, to  express  the  soul  of  the  man  at  his  best,  as  well 
as  his  features,  are  rare  in  any  age.  There  is  no  evi- 
dence that  there  were  any  such  in  Julius  Caesar's  time. 
In  the  long  reign  of  Augustus,  and  under  the  luxurious 
and  murderous  emperors  after  him,  sculptural  art  was  in 
greater  demand,  and  the  demand  produced  a  supply. 
Such  work  improved  under  Augustus.  The  statues  of 
Julius  then  made,  to  which  subsequent  writers  allude,  as 
shown  in  Bernoulli's  list  in  Chapter  III,  ought  to  have 
been  fairly  good.  The  statue  in  the  court  of  the  Con- 


PLACID   AND    MILITANT  71 

servatori  of  Rome  (Plates  IX,  XIII,  and  XIV),  and  the 
colossal  bust  of  the  Naples  Museum  (Plate  I),  are  credited 
to  that  period.  If  the  reader  will  study  them  he  will 
hardly  fail  to  recognize  the  expression  of  a  great  and  well- 
balanced  man.  But  he  will  not  see  any  decided  evidence 
of  self-esteem,  of  audacity,  or  of  electric  energy.  The 
characteristics  of  the  man  are  but  partially  expressed. 
The  flesh  is  flattered,  but  some  of  his  most  remarkable 
characteristics  are  lacking.  There  are  other  heads,  just 
as  surely  of  Julius,  which  go  to  another  extreme ;  viz., 
the  half  life-size  marble  of  the  antique  museum  of  Parma 
(Plate  XXI),  the  bronze  life-size  head  of  the  Cabinet  des 
Medailles  of  Paris  (Plates  XXIX  and  XXX),  and  the  min- 
iature bronze  of  the  Museo  et  Bibliotheka  Nationale  of 
Madrid  (Fig.  44).  In  these  one  sees  Caesar  militant  only. 
The  suave  gentleman,  the  sweet-mannered  friend,  the  phi- 
losopher, are  not  visible.  The  Parma  bust  is  the  embodi- 
ment of  intensity  of  thought  and  will  power;  the  Paris 
bronze  is  expressive  of  nervous  tension,  as  of  a  critical  mo- 
ment of  a  battle ;  the  little  Madrid  bronze  is  the  audacious 
spirit  dominating,  as  if  it  were  the  whole  man.  None  of 
these  suggest  a  calm  and  stately  orator,  or  a  far-seeing 
statesman.  Now,  if  the  reader  will  turn  to  the  British 
Museum  marble  bust,  with  its  singularly  thin  face,  its  large 
beautiful  mouth,  its  mingled  expression  of  benevolence  and 
will,  still  another  phase  of  character  is  illustrated.  The 
Naples  bust,  the  Conservator!  statue  in  Rome,  Nos.  107 
and  282  of  the  Vatican,  and  the  British  Museum  bust,  all 
show  the  genial  statesman.  Others,  like  the  Tresoria  bust, 


72        PORTRAITURES    OF   JULIUS    CESAR 

Florence  (Plate  XIX),  and  the  Cologne  bust  (Plate  XXVI), 
are  typical,  long-headed  Hamlet-Caesars.  A  careful  study 
of  these  busts  will  finally  carry  conviction  that  they  are 
all  made  for  the  same  man.  If  some  of  them  have  been 
made  centuries  since  he  lived,  we  can  but  surmise  that 
the  study  of  older  works  then  existing  were  instructive  to 
their  sculptors,  and  that  valuable  antique  heads  of  Caesar 
then  existing  do  not  now  exist. 

The  busts  of  Caesar  made  during  the  Renaissance,  when 
traditional  antique  busts  of  him  were  accessible  in  Rome, 
have  the  value  that  such  facilities  for  their  study  entitle 
them  to ;  but  to  no  more  consideration  than  works  of  our 
own  time,  or  future  work,  now  that  photographs  and  casts 
of  all  preserved  portraitures  are  accessible. 

While  visiting  the  studio  of  the  American  sculptor, 
Weeks,  in  Florence,  I  was  shown  his  original,  in  plaster, 
for  the  colossal  bust  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  executed  for 
the  Capitol,  Washington.  It  is  a  noble  portraiture.  I  men- 
tioned the  resemblance  of  cheeks,  mouth,  and  chin,  to 
those  of  our  traditional  Julius  Caesar.  The  sculptor  told 
me  that  I  was  not  the  first  to  make  the  remark.  Now 
let  us  suppose  that  the  life  and  character  of  Abraham 
Lincoln  had  been  well  described  by  the  writers  of  his  time, 
and  his  features  and  expression  as  well,  but  that  there 
existed  no  authentic  portraits  of  him.  Surely  it  would 
not  have  been  in  the  power  of  the  human  mind  to  con- 
ceive just  what  forms  of  bones,  muscles,  and  flesh  would 
have  combined  to  make  the  features  and  expression  of 
Abraham  Lincoln.  But  if  daguerrotypes  or  photographs 


73 

had  not  been  known,  and  some  quite  indifferent  paintings 
or  sculptures  of  his  head  existed,  each  having  a  possibility 
of  being  correct  in  one  part  or  another,  artists  of  genius 
studying  them  would  exercise  their  judgments  as  to  what 
was  imperfect,  or  out  of  anatomical  harmony,  or  lacking 
in  the  expression  of  that  many-sided  and  beautiful  char- 
acter; and  they  would  model  Lincoln's,  whose  rough 
features  should  not  be  smoothed  away,  and  might  even 
be  emphasized,  but  whose  expression  as  a  whole  would 
realize  the  real  presence  of  the  man  better  than  the 
pictures  from  which  they  were  derived.  But  this  illus- 
tration would  do  injustice  to  the  sources  of  light  as  to 
Caesar's  face.  We  know  that  statues  and  busts  of  his 
own  time  were  once  abundant  in  Roman  cities;  and  the 
miserable  coins  still  exist.  Our  trouble  is  that  most  of 
the  originals  are  gone,  and  that  we  now  have  principally 
only  studies  based  on  those  originals.  During  three  hun- 
dred years  after  his  death  there  was  no  lack  of  the 
latter.  After  a  thousand  more  years  of  destruction  and 
decay  had  swept  most  of  them  away,  a  fashion  set  in  to  find 
Greek  and  Roman  antique  marbles.  In  the  seventeenth 
and  eighteenth  centuries  copies  and  forgeries  multiplied. 
Now  we  are  not  always  sure  which  are  originals,  which 
copies,  and  which  forgeries.  Beautiful  ideal  studies  have 
been  made  of  Julius  Caesar,  as  well  as  ugly  ones,  lacking 
sometimes  the  idiosyncrasies  of  his  face  and  head  as  fixed 
in  the  minds  of  iconographists.  Only  by  familiarity  with 
the  history  of  the  man  and  his  time,  with  contemporary 
literature  concerning  his  personality,  with  the  coins,  and 


74        PORTRAITURES   OF   JULIUS   C^SAR 


with  all  accessible  busts,  statues,  and  gems  that  assume 
to  be  portraitures  of  him,  and  with  the  mediaeval  and 
modern  composite  studies  from  them,  will  we  be  qualified 
to  judge  what  is  good,  better,  and  best;  whether  antique 
or  modern  work,  originals  or  composites. 

The  engraving  facing  the  head  of  this  chapter  is  of  a 
colossal  bust  made  in  Louis  XIVs  reign,  and  is  a  valu- 
able modern  ideal  addition  to  the  Coesar  heads:  heretofore, 
so  far  as  the  author  knows,  unnoticed. 

The  engraving  below  is  from  a  carte-de-visite  photograph 
I  found  in  a  shop  at  Blois,  marked  Julius  Caesar.  I  think 
it  is  copied  from  a  famous  French  painting  I  have  some- 
where seen,  but  cannot  recall  where  or  by  whom.  It  is  a 
fine  idealization. 


CHAPTER   VI 
A  PROCESSION  OF  PORTRAITS 

THE  opposite  plate  is  a  view  of  plaster  casts  of  notable 
Csesar  busts  arranged  on  a  shelf  in  my  studio.  The  en- 
graved numbers  on  the  plate  are  described  below,  to  indi- 
cate the  locality  and  character  of  the  originals,  which  are 
subsequently  described  in  sequence  under  other  numbers. 

No.  1.  Madrid :  small  bronze  in  the  Bibliotheka  Na- 
tional, department  Archiologico :  our  number  61. 

No.  2.  Museum  of  Douai,  north  France:  antique  bronze: 
our  number  52. 

No.  3.    BesanQon  bronze :  our  number  56. 

No.  4.  Rome,  Vatican,  Chiaramonti  Gallery,  No.  107 : 
marble :  our  number  6. 

No.  5.  Naples  Museum :  diminutive  bronze  copy  of  co- 
lossal marble  bust :  our  number  1. 

No.  6.  Florence,  Tresoria,  Pitti  Palace :  marble :  our 
number  28. 

No.  7.  Paris,  Cabinet  des  Medailles,  Bibliotheque  Na- 
tionale :  black  bronze,  small  life-size :  our  number  50. 

No.  8.  Rome,  Ludivisi  Collection :  bronze,  small  life- 
size  :  our  number  13. 

No.  9.  Berlin,  Royal  Museum :  head  of  the  Toga 
Statue :  marble :  our  number  39. 

75 


76        PORTRAITURES   OF   JULIUS   C^SAR 

No.  10.  London,  British  Museum :  marble :  our  num- 
ber 64. 

No.  11.  Rome,  Vatican,  Hall  of  Busts,  No.  282 :  mar- 
ble :  our  number  5. 

No.  12.  Rome,  Vatican,  Chiaramonti  Gallery,  No.  135 : 
marble :  our  number  8. 

No.  13.  Dresden,  Albertinum  Gallery :  marble,  life-size : 
our  number  41. 

No.  14.  Parma,  Museum  of  Antiquities:  marble,  half 
life-size  :  our  number  31. 

No.  15.  Berlin,  Royal  Museum :  basalt,  small  life-size : 
our  number  40. 

No.  16.  A  study  of  Caesar  going  to  his  assassination, 
by  the  author:  not  intended  to  be  in  the  engraving. 

The  plate  tells,  in  clearer  language  than  words  can,  of 
those  points  of  resemblance  in  various  supposed  antique 
busts  that  are  admitted  to  be  of  Caesar;  which  busts,  when 
seen  separately,  in  the  museums  of  different  cities,  and  with 
intervals  of  time  between  the  observation  of  one  and  an- 
other, leave  the  judgment  confused  and  uncertain  as  to 
the  probability  of  all  being  intended  for  him.  It  em- 
braces in  one  glance  of  the  eye  some  of  the  most  nota- 
ble busts  known.  All  being  casts  from  the  originals,  and 
photographed  from  the  casts  under  the  same  light,  they 
epitomize  the  resemblances  which  lead  iconographists  to 
know  them  for  Julius  Caesar,  and  the  differences  which 
raise  doubts  as  to  the  fact.  One  has  but  to  note  the 
cheeks,  mouth,  and  chin,  to  recognize  a  common  individu- 
ality. Most  of  the  noses  of  the  originals  have  been 


A    PROCESSION    OF    PORTRAITS  77 

knocked  off  and  restored,  so  whatever  the  resemblances  or 
differences  may  have  been  originally,  that  feature  now  gives 
little  light.  In  foreheads  and  eyes  the  common  type  is 
marked  enough  until  we  come  to  No.  8,  a  copy  of  the 
Ludivisi  bronze,  which  I  reject  altogether  as  a  portrait  of 
Julius  Caesar,  and  include  simply  to  show  its  vulgar  varia- 
tion from  the  accepted  type.  Again,  when  we  get  to  Nos. 
10  and  11,  another  style  of  forehead  appears,  while  the  fea- 
tures below  are  quite  harmonious  with  the  first  numbers. 
The  eyes  are  very  close  under  the  eyebrows  in  all  of  them, 
though  not  deep-set. 

The  notable  heads  of  which  I  have  not  obtained  cast 
copies  are :  the  head  of  the  Capitoline  statue,  and  two  in 
the  Torlonia  collection  of  Rome ;  the  Campo  Santo  head 
of  Pisa ;  the  bronze  bust  of  the  Umzi,  Florence ;  the  Berlin 
Museum  bust ;  and  those  of  the  Hermitage,  St.  Petersburg  — 
the  latter  not  known  to  be  antique.  But  I  have  plates  of 
nearly  all  of  these  in  the  pages  following,  taken  from  the 
best  procurable  photographs. 

For  nearly  two  years  of  the  writer's  search  for  Julius 
Caesars  he  was  impressed  with  the  need  of  classifying  into 
types  the  busts  and  statues  found;  the  forms  and  ex- 
pressions varied  so  widely.  There  was  to  be  the  placid  or 
conventional-imperial  type,  of  which  the  Naples  bust,  and 
the  Conservatori  statue  in  Rome,  are  examples.  Then  the 
executive  type,  as  illustrated  by  the  Parma  bust,  Plate 
XXI,  and  the  bronze  (Fig.  15)  of  the  Uffizi  Museum  at 
Florence.  A  third  was  the  thinker  type,  rendered  with  sin- 
gular subtleness  by  the  sculptor  of  the  life-size  marble 


78        PORTRAITURES    OF   JULIUS    C^SAR 

head  in  the  "Tresoria,"  Pitti  Palace,  Florence,  Plate  XIX. 
After  marshalling  certain  of  the  busts  and  statues  into 
these  three  groups,  all  others  were  to  be  assembled  under 
the  head  of  miscellaneous.  But  the  more  I  saw,  studied, 
and  compared,  the  greater  became  the  difficulty  of  drawing 
the  line  between  the  types.  They  were  found  to  blend  into 
each  other  with  so  many  expressions  in  common,  though  of 
opposite  types,  and  to  have  quite  differing  characters,  though 
of  the  same  type,  that  I  gave  up  the  thought  of  separating  the 
family,  and  now  present  them  in  the  order  of  their  present 
localities,  leaving  the  reader  to  make  his  own  classifications. 
If  I  have  failed  to  find  some  Caesars,  antique  or  mediae- 
val, in  private  collections,  I  hope,  if  this  book  be  seen  by  the 
owners,  they  will  kindly  inform  me  of  them,  with  such  in- 
formation of  their  history  as  they  can  furnish,  accompanied 
with  photographs.  It  seems  possible  that  Italy  still  holds 
marbles  or  bronzes  of  Caesar  that  are  hid  in  little-known 
provincial  mansions,  and  others  that  may  yet  be  discovered 
out  of  the  soil  of  excavations.  At  this  writing,  the  old 
Forum  of  Rome  is  yielding  up  historical  works  from  the 
depths  beneath  the  deepest  former  explorations :  and  there 
is  always  hope  that  busts  of  our  great  subject  may  be 
added  from  other  work  that  is  being  prosecuted  by  the 
Italian  government.  Wealthy  travellers  in  former  times 
purchased  antiques  of  this  kind  which  are  now  concealed 
from  the  knowledge  of  students  in  the  country  homes  of 
England  and  other  countries.  My  own  searches  have  re- 
sulted in  finding  some  not  noticed  in  any  previous  publi- 
cation, a  few  of  which  may  be  claimed  as  antiques. 


A    PROCESSION    OF    PORTRAITS  79 

Bernoulli,  having  made  by  far  the  most  complete  pre- 
ceding collection,  I  have  added  his  list  numbers  after  my 
own,  in  brackets,  for  convenience  of  reference  and  compari- 
son. Where  no  such  bracketed  numbers  are  shown,  my 
numbers  refer  to  works  not  known  or  not  considered  by  him, 
or  other  preceding  authority.  Following  thus  the  example 
of  Bernoulli  in  numbering  my  own  collection,  the  reader 
may  need  to  be  cautioned  against  confounding  subject  num- 
bers (which  follow  consecutively  in  Chapter  VI)  with  the 
page-plate  numbers  marked  with  Roman  numerals,  or  with 
the  numerically  figured  engravings  forming  illustrative  in- 
sets :  —  these  numbers  being  quite  independent  of  the  subject 
numbers. 

Our  illustrations  will  begin  with  Italy. 


ITALY 


NAPLES 

No.  1.    [B.  1].     The  marble  colossal  Julius  Caesar  head 
of   the    gallery   of    Roman    busts    in    the    great    Museum 

of  Naples.  For  full-face  portrait, 
see  engraving,  Plate  1,  Chapter  I. 
This  vignette  is  a  profile  of  the 
same.  Professor  Jules  Petra,  Di- 
rector of  the  Museum,  informed 
me  that  it  is  the  only  antique  of 
Julius  Caesar  in  that  great  collec- 
tion ;  that  it  is  from  the  Farnese 
collection,  but  that  its  anterior 
history  is  unknown.  It  seems  by 
most  authorities  to  be  considered 
the  most  valuable  one  portraiture 
of  him  now  known.  I  do  not 
think  so ;  believing  No.  107  of 
the  Chiaramonti  Gallery,  Vatican, 
nearer  to  life.  Bernoulli  aptly  describes  it,  "  A  striking 
physiognomy,  of  mild  but  commanding  seriousness."  Occu- 
pying a  position  in  a  good  light,  it  is  remarkable  that  it 
has  been  little  used  by  artists  to  produce  smaller  copies  in 
bronze  and  marble  ;  and  when  used,  misused.  I  found  no 
correct  reduction  from  it  in  bronze ;  but  incorrect  ones  are 

80 


FIG.  1 


NAPLES  81 

numerous.  The  mild  strength  of  the  face,  and  the  large 
well-formed  head,  would  do  no  discredit  to  any  great  man. 
But  to  one  who  looks  for  some  expression  of  audacity,  of  a 
born  leader  of  men,  it  is  disappointing.  The  orator,  the 
politician,  the  statesman,  the  suave,  well-bred,  and  kindly 
gentleman  —  all  these  it  is  easy  to  imagine,  as  possibilities, 
in  this  great  bust.  But  we  cannot  reconcile  it  with  the 
military  Caesar.  The  bust  has  no  history  back  of  the 
fifteenth  century,  when  it  belonged  to  the  Farnese  collec- 
tion in  Rome.  Only  the  head  and  neck  are  antique.  The 
supporting  bust  was  made  for  it  in  the  century  named.  It 
is  supposed '  by  some  antiquarians  that  the  head  once  be- 
longed to  a  colossal  statue.  The  marble,  the  workmanship, 
and  the  high  finish  of  this  head  indicate  the  most  elaborate 
effort  by  the  sculptor  to  make  a  great  work.  S.  Baring- 
Gould  J  speaks  disparagingly  of  it ;  hastily  and  carelessly, 
I  think.  Visconti  and  Bernoulli,  the  highest  authorities, 
do  not. 

The  statue  of  Caesar,  in  the  museum,  opposite  the  above 
bust,  is  a  clumsy  modern  work  by  Albacini,  of  which  the 
head  is  a  copy  of  the  colossal  bust,  and  not  a  good  copy. 

There  are  twelve  busts  of  Roman  Emperors  in  a  room 
adjoining  the  Hall  of  Busts  of  the  Naples  Museum,  one  of 
which  is  intended  for  Julius  Caesar.  These  are  a  "  job-lot " 
ordered  and  executed  in  the  fifteenth  century ;  mostly  bold 
and  careless  in  modelling.  The  one  of  Julius  Caesar  does 
not  seem  to  me  of  sufficient  value  to  number  or  picture  in 
this  collection. 

1  Author  of  The  Tragedy  of  the  Ccesars. 


82        PORTRAITURES   OF   JULIUS   C^SAR 

There  is  a  cameo  in  the  Cameo  room,  case  No.  52, 
marked  interrogatively,  "Cicero?"  This  seems  to  me  to 
be  an  excellent  Julius  Caesar,  and  quite  distinct  in  expres- 
sion from  the  well-known  busts  of  Cicero.  It  is  not  noticed 
in  Bernoulli. 

ROME 

It  is  impossible  to  learn  the  history  of  any  busts  and 
statues  of  Julius  Caesar  in  Rome  back  of  four  hundred  years 
ago.  An  Italian  writer,  Aldroandi,  in  1556,  makes  the 
earliest  known  reference  to  the  statues,  busts,  and  heads 
of  Caesar  in  the  city  at  that  time.  It  is  as  follows :  — 

One  in  Palazzo  Casali, 

Two  in  Palazzo  Ceci, 

One  in  Palazzo  Gaddi, 

One  in  Bindo  Altoviti, 

One  in  Casa  Mario  Maccaroni, 

One  in  Palazzo  Farnese, 

One  in  Palazzo  Angelo  de  Massimo, 

One  in  Palazzo  Alexandri  Ruffini  (now  Conservator! 
statue  of  Rome), 

One  in  Casa  or  Palazzo  Valerio  della  Valle. 

It  is,  of  course,  not  certain  that  these  were  all,  but  it  is 
likely  they  were  the  most  noted.  What  there  may  have 
been  in  other  cities,  and  in  old  palaces  and  family  mansions 
throughout  Italy,  is  a  mere  matter  of  conjecture.  Those 
which  were  then  in  Rome  have  changed  ownership,  and 
have  since  been  known  by  the  palaces  where  they  were  first 
catalogued.  The  Vatican  naturally  has  the  best  variety,  but 
it  needs  an  Italian  student  who  can  pore  into  the  dusty 


PLATE 


HEAD  OF  THE  CAPITOLINE  STATUE  OF  JULIUS  CJBSAR  :  ROME,  FROM  4 
PHOTOGRAPH  BY  ANDERSON 


ROME  83 

catalogues  and  Latin  records  of  the  past,  to  obtain  even  a 
ray  of  light  on  their  history.  This  work  pretends  to  no 
such  erudition,  but  seeks  only  to  illustrate  pictorially,  and 
to  discuss,  those  which  are  open  to  examination. 

No.  2.  [B.  2].  The  marble  statue,  heroic  size,  located 
in  the  Court  of  the  Conservatori,  on  Capitoline  Hill.  It  is 
said  to  have  been  found  in  the  Forum  of  Caesar.  It  was  in 
possession  of  Bishop  Rufini  of  Melfi  about  1562,  and  from 
there  came  to  its  present  place,  presumably  in  the  sixteenth 
century.  (See  Plates  IX,  XIII,  XIV,  and  Fig.  2.) 

By  reason  of  the  belief  that  it  came  from  Caesar's  Forum, 
and  was  executed  near  to  his  life-time,  and  the  fact  that  it  is 
of  heroic  size  and  good  work- 
manship, and  that  the  head 
was  found  in  good  preserva- 
tion —  altogether  give  it  a 
weight  of  authority  as  a 
genuine  antique  portraiture 
of  Caesar  that  no  other  statue 
possesses.  The  nose  is  the 
only  important  part  of  the 
head  that  is  a  restoration ;  so 
that  the  latter,  on  the  whole, 
must  be  the  expression  of  the 
sculptor's  intelligence  of  the 
subject.  But  the  discolora- 
tion of  parts  of  the  marble  injures  the  expression.  So  long 
as  it  remains  in  its  present  position  it  must  be  quite  disap- 


84        PORTRAITURES    OF   JULIUS    C^SAR 

pointing  to  those  who  look  at  it  for  the  first  time.  Placed 
against  the  back  wall  of  a  rather  dark  arcade,  the  head 
reaches  up  into  the  twilight  under  the  floor  above.  One 
must  look  up  to  it  from  below.  This  gives  no  correct 
idea  of  the  form  of  the  head.  One  can  neither  see  it  in 
profile,  nor  have  a  point  of  view  for  a  good  perspective,  as 
the  piers  of  the  arcade  are  in  the  way.  Added  to  these 
impressions  incident  to  the  dark  place  into  which  the  head 
rises,  is  the  fact  that  dust  and  time-stains  upon  parts  of  the 
face  confuse  the  true  lights  and  shadows.  These  are  reasons 
enough  why  the  most  notable  statue  of  Julius  Caesar  takes 
so  badly  in  photograph  that  these  are  even  more  unsatisfac- 
tory than  one's  own  view  of  it.  The  distinguished  director 
of  this  museum,  Signer  Castellani,  when  I  complained  of  its 
unfortunate  position,  seemed  to  consider  it  a  sufficient  reason 
for  perpetuating  its  bad  placement,  to  say,  "Sir,  it  has  been 
there  for  centuries ! "  Were  it  placed  where  full  light  might 
fall  upon  it  (protected  from  the  elements),  and  also  cleaned 
of  stains,  the  statue  would  have  greater  interest  to  the  in- 
telligent student. 

This  work  being  a  collection  of  portraitures  of  Julius 
Caesar's  head,  without  reference  to  the  statuary  treatment  of 
his  person  or  his  dress,  the  author  goes  a  little  outside  of  its 
scope  to  remark  that  the  pose  of  the  body  is  very  graceful 
for  a  figure  so  massive ;  much  more  massive  than  he  believes 
Caesar's  to  have  been.  Bernoulli  believes  it  to  be  a  work  of 
the  first  period  of  the  Emperors.  That  ought  to  mean  dur- 
ing the  reign  of  Augustus.  It  gives  me  the  impression  of  a 
compromise  in  the  sculptor's  mind  between  the  massiveness 


PLATE   XIV 


JULIUS  C.ESAR:  STATUE  OK  THE  CAPITOLINE,  ROME 


•    •  < 

•  1*4* 


ROME  85 

of  face  and  figure  which  a  Roman  who  had  been  proclaimed 
one  of  the  gods,  and  the  posthumous  head  of  the  imperial  line, 
was  entitled  to  have,  rather  than  the  thin,  keenly  intellectual 
face  which  Csesar's  was.  The  mouth  is  not  wide  enough ; 
not  as  wide  as  on  the  Naples  bust,  nor  as  on  others  of  the 
greatest  repute,  nor  as  the  literary  descriptions  of  him ; 
which  allude  to  that  feature  as  especially  large  and  full. 
The  high  broad  forehead,  and  the  large  long  head,  are  very 
like  the  Naples  bust.  On  the  whole,  the  expression  is  pleas- 
ing and  strong.  It  makes  a  pair  with  the  Naples  head,  as 
if  it  were  by  the  same  sculptor.  The  two  form  a  type. 
There  are  no  others  which  closely  resemble  them.  They  do 
not  give  me  the  impression  of  studies  from  life,  or  as  being 
the  work  of  an  artist  who  studied  so  much  Caesar  as  he  was, 
as  to  make  a  statue  that  would  meet  the  expectation  of  the 
Roman  people  and  the  imperial  family.  He  may  not  even  have 
been  required  to  satisfy  the  eyes  of  critical  and  competent 
friends  of  Caesar,  but  only  to  execute  the  commission  of 
a  municipality,  or  of  some  imperial  officer  who  ordered  it. 
There  is  a  facsimile  plaster  cast  of  this  statue  in  the 
Court  of  the  Ecole  des  Beaux  Arts  in  Paris,  and  a  copy  in 
Caen  stone,  believed  to  be  a  correct  copy  of  the  cast,  on  the 
south  side  of  the  central  walk  of  the  Jardin  de  Tuileries. 
It  faces  eastward  toward  the  old  palace,  and  gives  the  best 
impression  that  can  be  obtained  of  the  original  in  Rome. 
The  plates  facing  pages  19  and  83  were  taken  from  a  photo- 
graph by  Giraudin,  Paris,  of  the  Beaux- Arts  copy.  It  must 
be  remembered  that  the  nose,  not  being  wholly  the  original 
one  of  the  statue,  has  no  authority  to  settle  conflicting 


PORTRAITURES    OF   JULIUS    C^SAR 


opinions  concerning  that  feature.  The  plate  of  the  head 
only,  facing  page  82,  opposite  the  heading  "  Rome,"  is 
from  the  best  photograph  I  have  been  able  to  find  taken 
directly  from  the  original  statue. 

No.  3.    [B.  3].     In  the  entrance  corridor  on  the  second 
floor  of  the  Conservatori  Museum  is  a  bust  (Fig.  3)  that  is 

not  named  in  the  catalogue,  or 
numbered  on  the  marble,  but  is 
recognized  by  Bernoulli  as  a  Julius 
Caesar,  and  supposed  by  him  to  be 
a  modern  or  mediaeval  piece.  It 
is  a  very  striking  head  ;  similar  in 
expression  to  the  head  of  the  statue 
in  Berlin,  and  the  Dresden  bust  (Fig. 
29)  in  the  Albertinum  Museum. 
It  will  be  seen  from  the  vignette 
copy  of  my  sketch  of  the  profile, 
that  the  nose  is  more  projecting 
at  the  top  than  the  other  busts ; 
even  more  so  than  on  the  Parma 
bust  or  the  Berlin  statue.  As  this 
and  the  Dresden  bust  above  alluded  to  are  both  con- 
sidered modern  by  Bernoulli,  but  were  known  long  before 
the  Parma  bust  was  discovered,  it  piques  curiosity  to 
know  from  what  they  were  originally  studied !  There  is 
no  doubt  in  my  mind  that  the  sculptors  in  both  cases 
were  earnest  in  trying  to  give  the  expression  of  mental 
power  and  will  to  Caesar's  face,  and  that  the  heads  from 


ROME 


87 


which  they  derived  their  ideals  did  not  include  either 
the  Conservatori  statue,  the  Naples  bust,  or  the  Vatican 
busts.  There  must  have  existed  some  high-nose  antique  of 
Caesar  which  the  sculptor  of  this  bust  had  in  mind.  He 
probably  exaggerated  the  feature ;  but  the  high-bridge  form 
of  nose  on  some  of  the  coins,  as  well  as  in  early  busts, 
give  reason  to  doubt  the  absolute  correctness  of  that  Latin 
author  who  writes  that  Caesar's  nose  was  straight.  The 
front  view  of  this  No.  3  is  majestic  and  forceful  like  the 
Dresden  bust  (Fig.  29),  but  the  forehead  is  narrow,  and  not 
high,  so  that  on  the  whole  the  bust  impresses  one  as  a 
failure,  though  it  has  strong  points. 

No.  4.  [B.  4].  This  very 
clumsy  portraiture,  marked  Julius 
Caesar  (Fig.  4),  occupies  a  con- 
spicuous place  in  the  Hall  of 
the  Emperors  of  the  Capitoline 
Museum.  The  head  and  neck 
are  of  marble,  and  are  assumed 
to  be  antique.  It  seems  to  me 
to  have  been  worked  up  from 
one  of  the  coin  heads.  It  must 
have  had  a  bold  nose  originally, 
but  having  lost  the  lower  half, 
the  part  restored  is  absurdly 
shortened,  making  an  equally 

absurd  length  of  upper  lip,  thus  probably  destroying  the 
original  expression  of  the  face.  As  it  stands  it  is  one  of  the 


88        PORTRAITURES   OF   JULIUS    CESAR 

poorest  Julius  Caesars  in  Rome,  and  unfortunately  one  of  the 
most  conspicuously  exhibited.  It  ought  not  to  have  a  place 
among  good  busts,  but  being  so  honoured  in  the  Hall  of 
the  Emperors,  I  call  attention  to  it  as  a  misleading  work. 

No.  5.    [B.  5].     In  the  Bust  room  of  the  Vatican,  num- 
bered 282.    See  Plate  XV  and  Fig.  5.    A  life-size  marble  head 

of  a  type  quite  different  from  all 
the  preceding.  The  forehead  is 
higher,  sloping  backward;  very 
different  in  facial  angle  from  the 
rather  vertical  lines  of  the  Naples 
bust  and  the  Conservatori  statue, 
but  resembling  the  British  Mu- 
seum bust.  It  is  quite  inferior  as 
art  work,  in  every  way,  to  the 
latter;  still  more  inferior  to  No. 
107  of  the  Chiaramonti  Gallery 
next  described.  The  parallel, 
wide-apart,  vertical  wrinkles  over 
the  nose  are  not  thus  parallel  on 
other  busts  of  him,  and  are  not 
the  natural  direction  of  those  wrinkles  on  the  foreheads 
of  intense  thinkers,  or  executive  men.  The  entire  nose  is 
a  restoration,  but  well  done.  The  mouth,  not  broad,  but 
full-lipped  and  kindly,  the  eyes  large,  and  close  under  the 
eyebrows,  the  high  cheek  bones  and  the  flat  cheek,  are 
generally  characteristic.  The  back  head  is  too  small 
for  a  man  of  Caesar's  extraordinary  forcefulness.  The 


FIG.  6 


PLATE   XV 


JULIUS  CJESAR  :  BUST  No.  282,  OF  THE  "HALL  OF  BUSTS,"  VATICAN,  ROME 


ROME  89 

bust  gives  me  the  impression  of  a  careless  "free  hand 
copy"  of  something  like  the  British  Museum  bust,  indi- 
cating rather  a  low  order  of  skill  and  conscientiousness  in 
the  sculptor.  I  cannot  but  think  it  a  mediaeval  work,  with 
small  claim  to  occupy  a  high  rank  among  antique  busts, 
such  as  its  position  in  the  Vatican  might  be  supposed  to 
indicate.  Americans  of  the  United  States,  familiar  with  a 
past  generation  of  statesmen,  may  recognize  in  the  profile 
of  this  face  some  resemblance  to  the  great  orator  and 
political  leader,  Henry  Clay. 

No.  6.  [B.  6].  Vatican,  Chiaramonti  Museum,  No. 
107.  See  Plate  IV,  page  19,  and  Plate  XVI,  opposite. 
An  elegant  and  harmonious  life-size  head,  of  a  type  dif- 
fering essentially  from  the  preceding,  and  superior  in  all 
respects.  The  head,  while  equally  high  over  the  ears,  is 
stronger  at  the  back,  and  more  vertical  at  the  forehead ; 
in  both  of  which  parts  it  is  more  allied  to  others  of  the 
best  types.  The  lower  two-thirds  of  the  nose  is  a  restora- 
tion, and,  I  think,  quite  too  pointed.  The  profile  vignette 
is  taken  from  a  cast  of  the  bust  made  for  me  by  special 
permission  by  Malpieri  in  Rome.  The  photograph  hardly 
does  justice  to  the  fine  modelling  of  every  part.  The  chin 
and  lower  jaw  are  stronger  features  than  in  No.  5.  The 
mouth  seems  to  me  to  be  more  successful  in  rendering 
Caesar's  habitual  kindliness  of  disposition  than  the  expres- 
sion of  dominating  force  of  will,  shown  by  the  Parma 
bust,  and  some  others.  While  this  belongs  clearly  to  the 
type  of  which  the  Pisa,  the  Parma,  and  the  Tresoria  bust 


90        PORTRAITURES   OF   JULIUS   C^SAR 

of  Florence  belong,  the  face  is  perceptibly  longer,  and  in 
so  much  a  higher  type,  and,  I  think,  more  correct  por- 
traiture. There  is  a  gross  fault  in  the  cut  at  the  top 
of  the  forehead,  made  apparently  to  emphasize  the  hair 
line,  which  breaks  the  upward  rise  of  the  brow.  I  do  not 
think  it  was  thus  originally. 

I  consider  this  marble  the  finest  one  head  known,  to 
represent  Caesar  the  thinker,  jurist,  statesman,  gentleman. 
One  fails  to  see  in  it  the  evidence,  even  latent,  of  his  mili- 
tary dash,  his  audacity,  his  energy.  Comparing  it  with 
the  British  Museum  bust,  I  consider  it  a  much  more  care- 
ful piece  of  sculptural  portraiture,  equally  fine  in  the 
bringing  out  of  Caesar's  character,  and  more  likely  to  be 
an  actual  work  from  life  than  any  other  I  have  seen. 

No.  7.  [B.  7].  Also  in  the  Chiaramonti  Gallery,  No. 
527.  Apparently  a  copy  from  memory  of  No.  282  in  the 
Bust  room,  and  inferior.  It  is  cut  from  a  piece  of  Carrara 
marble,  only  large  enough  to  make  a  head  and  neck ;  which 
would  go  to  prove,  were  other  evidence  wanting,  that  it 
is  not  an  antique,  as  no  artist  in  the  Caesarian  age  would 
have  been  so  disrespectful  as  to  skimp  on  stone  for  a  bust 
of  Julius  Caesar.  As  it  is  a  sort  of  composition  from 
Nos.  5  and  6,  and  inferior  to  them,  I  have  not  thought 
it  of  enough  value  to  illustrate. 

No.  8.  [B.  8].  Vatican,  Chiaramonti  Gallery,  No.  135. 
This  deeply  furrowed,  strange  bust  has  been  supposed 
to  represent  Caesar  as  Pontifex  Maximus.  See  plate  fac- 


PLATE   XVI 


JULIUS  C^SAR  :  No.  107,  OF  THE  CHIARAMONTI  GALLERY,  VATICAN,  ROME 


ROME  91 

ing  Chapter  IV.  It  is  a  curious  study;  and  by  its  ap- 
pearance of  too  great  age  suggests  doubts  if  it  were 
designed  for  him.  But  the  Italian  experts  have  put  it 
in  the  great  Vatican  collection,  and  there  catalogued  it 
Julius  Caesar.  As  it  represents  a  person  apparently  be- 
tween seventy  and  eighty,  one  would  naturally  think  it 
not  intended  for  a  man  who  died  at  fifty-six.  Yet  it 
is  so  stamped  with  Caesar's  facial  peculiarities,  and  with 
a  certain  majesty  of  expression  that  must  have  been,  on 
occasion,  natural  to  him,  that  one  is  piqued  to  give  it 
careful  study.  Examination  reveals  causes  of  the  aged 
look  that  may  not  be  thought  of  on  the  first  glance. 
Time,  wear,  and  accident  have  each  made  their  impres- 
sion on  the  marble,  and  slightly  changed  the  features. 
The  nose  is  all  a  restoration,  and  has  a  smooth  massive- 
ness  that  is  out  of  harmony  by  its  smoothness  and  younger 
look  with  the  rough  and  aged  lines  of  all  the  rest  of  the 
face.  The  original  may  have  given  a  slightly  different  ex- 
pression. On  the  chin  the  marble  has  scaled  badly.  This 
adds  to  the  aged  look.  The  mouth  is  broad  and  strong, 
and  the  lips  thinner  than  Caesar's  should  have  been  at  fifty- 
six,  but  as  they  might  have  become  with  age.  Our  Dresden 
bust  (Fig.  29)  is  similar  in  the  thinness  of  the  lips,  but  that 
being  modern  may  have  had  its  prototype  in  this.  Then 
the  lips  have  both  been  chipped  a  little,  so  that  we  cannot 
tell  just  what  their  lines  were  originally.  A  piece  is  gone 
from  the  left  eyebrow,  and  a  smaller  one  from  the  right. 
The  shape  of  the  forehead  and  other  parts  of  the  head 
conform  to  the  average  of  the  best  types,  though  the  head 


92        PORTRAITURES    OF   JULIUS    CAESAR 

is  not  so  thick  laterally  as  most  of  them.  There  is  a  curious 
dent,  as  of  a  gash,  leaving  a  deep  scar,  on  the  right  of  the 
top  of  the  forehead.  The  cheeks  at  once  recall  Caesar,  but 
curiously  exaggerated  in  hollowness  and  depth  of  wrinkles. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  singularly  massive,  straight, 
over-long  nose  adds  something  of  solemnity  to  the  visage ; 
and  as  no  part  of  it  is  the  original,  it  is  quite  impossible  to 
imagine  what  effect  another  nose  and  the  other  features  un- 
marred,  as  they  came  from  the  sculptor,  might  make  in  the 
expression.  It  would  be  too  old  for  the  real  Caesar  in  any 
case,  but  not  too  old  for  some  sculptors  idealization  long 
after  his  death,  of  the  office  and  the  man  combined. 

The  technical  execution  of  this  bust  is  impressive  with 
the  conviction  that  it  came  from  some  master  modeller's 
hand.  It  suggests  Michael  Angelo.  In  its  bold  and  deep 
strokes  to  mark  the  anatomy  of  a  singularly  forceful  face, 
and  that  face  what  Caesar's  might  have  been  in  old  age, 
had  he  lived  to  old  age,  there  is  evidence  that  the  sculptor 
was  feeling  his  way  in  clay  with  a  free  hand  to  produce 
a  strong  characterization.  I  do  not  believe  it  was  designed 
by  its  author  to  be  slavishly  duplicated  in  marble,  but  only  to 
serve  as  a  study.  It  may  have  been  reproduced  in  plaster  for 
the  purpose.  But  working  from  the  plaster  cast,  such  a 
master  need  not,  and  would  not,  in  marble,  have  reproduced 
the  excessive  furrows  of  age,  nor  would  he  have  failed  to 
correct  the  anatomical  exaggerations.  An  experimental 
study  by  a  great  sculptor,  has,  I  think,  been  copied  literally 
in  later  times  in  marble  as  a  speculation ;  and  it  must  be 
considered  but  a  powerful  exaggeration  of  the  muscular 


ROME  93 

anatomy,  and  by  consequence,  of  the  age,  of  Julius  Caesar's 
face. 

There  are  several  inferior  busts  elsewhere  that  resemble 
this,  which  are  supposed  by  Italian  iconographists  to  be 
imitations  of  it.  I  have  a  suspicion  that  there  may  have 
been  a  death-mask  of  Julius  Caesar  that  was  their  proto- 
type. Mark  Antony  and  Caesar's  wife  had  the  body  in 
their  possession  two  days  before  the  public  funeral.  Only 
a  few  hours  would  be  needed  to  make  the  mask.  The  un- 
certainties of  the  moment  for  all  the  actors  in  the  great 
catastrophe  might  have  made  a  secret  of  the  mask.  It 
might  have  come  to  light,  not  for  plaster  copies,  but  to  be 
duplicated  by  the  eye,  or  from  memory,  by  marble  workers. 
These  thoughts  were  suggested  by  a  bust  found  in  the 
Museum  of  Antiquities  of  Turin.  See  pages  120-122.  It  is 
shown  for  Julius  Caesar ;  is  of  marble,  life-size ;  but  all  of 
the  head  back  of  the  middle  line,  vertically,  is  carelessly 
made,  small,  and  out  of  proportion,  as  if  of  no  importance ; 
while  the  face  itself  at  once  gives  the  impression  of  a 
death-mask.  The  compressed,  receding  lips,  hollow  cheeks, 
shrunken  chin,  all  remind  one  of  death.  The  question 
came  instantly  to  the  writer's  mind  at  the  first  sight  of 
it,  —  Are  not  all  the  busts  of  this  type  the  outgrowth  of 
studies  from  a  death-mask,  or  copies  of  it  ? 

No.  9.  [B.  9].  Vatican,  Braccio  Nueve,  No.  4.  This 
is  a  marble  bust,  about  life-size,  placed  on  a  bracket  so 
high  that  neither  sketch  nor  photograph  can  be  made  to 
show  it  fairly.  The  marble  also  is  so  mildewed  on  the  face 


94        PORTRAITURES   OF   JULIUS   C^SAR 


as  to  affect  the  expression.  Below  the  neck  it  is  porphyry. 
The  head  is  long  from  front  to  back.  The  nose  (restored) 
straight  and  strong,  the  mouth  wide  and  full,  the  chin 
deeper  and  broader  than  usual.  Face  and  neck  in  front 
view  are  massive,  giving  the  effect  of  a  proportionally  nar- 
row and  inferior  forehead  as  seen  from  below.  It  seems 
to  me  an  inharmonious  bust  of  the  Renaissance,  similar  in 
form  and  expression  to  our  No.  3  of  the  Conservatori.  But 

the  bad  angle  of  view  and 
the  bad  light  upon  it,  to- 
gether with  the  mildew 
stains,  make  it  impossible 
to  judge  intelligently.  I 
think  it  interesting  enough 
to  have  a  better  place. 

No.  10.  [B.  10].  Villa 
Borghese,  vestibule,  S.  E. 
corner,  upon  a  bracket.  Its 
height  prevents  making  a 
good  sketch  or  photograph 
of  it.  Bernoulli  mentions 
its  resemblance  to  the  Ludi- 
visi  bronze.  I  failed  to  see 
any.  It  seems  to  me  a 
much  better  head. 


FIG.  6 


No.  11.    Villa  Borghese, 
vestibule,    high    up    in    an 


ROME 


95 


oval  niche.  One  of  four  (all  marked  XXXI)  facing  out 
from  the  palace,  and  described  in  the  villa  catalogue  as 
Roman  Emperors  of  the  time  of  Septimus  Severus;  which 
may  mean  that  the  busts  were  made  in  the  time  of  that 
Emperor.  Figure  6  is  from  our  photograph  of  it.  Whether 
this  is  for  Julius  Caesar  is  uncertain.  The  head  is  very 
like  his.  The  nose  is  too  short  and  looks  as  if  it  may  be 
in  part  a  restoration.  It  is  numbered  with  the  Caesars  in 
order  to  draw  further  study  to  it. 

No.  12.  Villa  Borghese,  main  entrance  hall.  Marble 
bust,  heroic  size,  in  oval  recess,  over  door  leading  into  east 
room  (Fig.  7).  Below  the  neck  it 
is  of  porphyry.  One  of  four  busts 
of  Roman  Emperors  high  up 
around  the  room,  all  marked  LIII ; 
this  one  evidently  intended  to  per- 
sonate Julius  Caesar.  It  is  a  strong 
characterization.  Even  from  a 
photographer's  ladder  the  view  is 
quite  too  much  from  below  to  do 
it  justice.  It  is  presumed  to  be 
a  Renaissance  work.  The  photog- 
grapher  was  employed  to  take  a 
nearly  profile  view  of  it,  which  is  much  more  interesting, 
but  on  delivery  of  his  work  it  was  found  that  he  had  taken 
another  bust  by  mistake. 


FIG.  7 


No.  13.    [B.  11].     Ludivisi   collection,   No.  67  on  the 


96        PORTRAITURES   OF   JULIUS    CESAR 


ground  floor  of  new  Piambino  Palace,  now  the  palace  of  the 
ex-queen  Margherita.  This  is  an  antique  bronze  head  and 
neck  which  came  into  the  possession  of  the  Ludivisi  family 
in  1622  from  the  Villa  Ceci.  It  seems  to  be  a  famous  bust 
among  iconographists.  The  antique  bronze  is  set  into  a 
modern  verd-antique  marble  bust.  Bernoulli  thinks  it  looks 
too  old  for  Caesar.  Helbig,  in  his  Guide  to  the  Public  Col- 
lections of  Classical  Antiquities  in  Rome,  describes  it  under 
the  title  of  "  Bronze  Head  of  an  Ancient  Roman,"  and  says 

in  conclusion  of  the  descrip- 
tion, "  The  identification  with 
the  elder  Scipio  Africanus,  or 
Julius  Caesar,  is  as  baseless 
as  the  doubt  that  has  been 
thrown  on  the  antiquity  of 
the  head."  Salesmen  of  art 
works  in  Rome  presume  upon 
the  credulity  of  buyers  who 
want  a  Julius  Caesar,  to  inform 
them  that  this  bronze  is  an 
admirable  piece  of  modelling, 
and  the  best  bust  of  Caesar. 
There  is  no  bust  of  him  so 
much  sold  in  Rome  as  this 
very  bad  one.  Yet  Helbig 
denounces  it  as  no  Caesar,  and  Bernoulli  hints  a  doubt.  If 
made  to  personate  Caesar,  I  venture  to  denounce  it  as  an 
abortion.  The  low,  deformed  forehead  appears  as  if  the 
skull  had  been  broken  up;  the  mouth  is  too  narrow;  the 


FIG.  8 


ROME  97 

cheeks  are  out  of  shape ;  and  the  face  wears  an  expression 
of  sullen  discontent  quite  unlike  the  expression  of  Caesar's 
complaisant  nature.  Only  the  nose  is  cast  in  a  mould  to 
suggest  him.  Salesmen  call  attention  to  the  boldness  of 
the  modelling,  its  admirable  superiority  to  modern  work, 
etc.  The  disinterested  observer  can  tell  the  reader  that  it 
happens  to  be  that  antique,  labelled  Caesar,  of  which  fac- 
simile plaster  casts  are  in  possession  of  workers  in  marble 
and  bronze,  who  have  only  to  copy  them  by  the  usual 
mechanical  process,  to  find  a  good  sale  of  them  to  the 
provincial  museums  and  public  libraries  of  the  world.  On 
the  other  hand,  a  really  valuable  model,  such  as  the  Na- 
ples bust,  is  too  large  to  copy  for  general  sale,  and  has  not, 
so  far  as  the  writer  could  learn,  ever  been  accurately  reduced 
in  marble  or  bronze.  No.  107  of  the  Chiaramonti  Gallery, 
in  the  Vatican,  can  only  be  copied  by  special  permission  for 
each  copy.  The  Tresoria  bust  of  Florence  seems  almost 
unknown.  Copies  are  not  furnished  of  the  Pisa  bust.  The 
half  life-size  marble  of  Parma,  the  director  told  me,  had 
never  been  copied  until  I  obtained  permission  to  have  a  copy. 
Yet  these,  so  far  as  I  can  judge,  are  the  best  five  marble 
busts  of  Julius  Caesar.  It  is  easier  for  sellers  to  push  things 
already  in  stock,  and  "  introduced  to  the  trade,"  than  to  in- 
troduce others  of  more  merit.  Thus  copies  of  this  Ludivisi 
bronze  misrepresentation  of  Julius  Caesar  are  going  around 
the  earth.  Fig.  8  is  from  a  photograph  of  the  original. 

No.  14.   Piambino  or  Margherita  Palace.      On  the  left 
side  of    the  vaulted  carriage  entrance  is  a  noble  bust,  not 


98        PORTRAITURES   OF   JULIUS    CAESAR 

honoured  with  a  place  in  the  locked-up  antiques,  among  which 
is  the  bronze  last  described.  Placed  in  a  niche  so  high  that 
it  cannot  be  well  seen,  and  in  a  very  bad  light,  where  it  can 
neither  be  fully  judged,  sketched,  nor  photographed  from 
the  pavement  below,  it  piques  curiosity.  The  owners  of  the 
property  were  unamiable  in  refusing  to  permit  a  photog- 
rapher's ladder  to  be  used  in  the  court.  Since  my  stay  in 
Rome,  the  property  has  come  into  the  possession  of  the  noble 
ex-queen  Margherita,  under  whose  kindly  courtesy  it  is  not 
likely  that  such  refusals  will  be  continued.  It  is  also 
reported  that  "the  locked-up  antiques"  of  the  Ludivisi 
collection  are  soon  to  be  a  part  of  an  Italian  National 
Museum. 

By  reason  of  the  refusal  above  mentioned  I  cannot  accom- 
pany this  description  with  an  engraving.  Signer  Rocci, 
maitre  domo  of  the  property  in  1899,  informed  me  that  it  is 
one  of  the  ancient  marbles  of  the  Ludivisi,  or  the  Boncompagni 
family ;  but  whether  ancient  by  a  few  centuries,  or  by  tens 
of  centuries,  he  could  not  say.  The  origin  of  such  busts  it 
is  for  Italian  students  to  investigate.  So  far  as  it  can  be 
judged  from  below,  it  seems  one  of  the  best  of  the  Renais- 
sance works. 

No.  15.  [B.  18].  Casali  Palace.  Bernoulli  mentions  a 
life-size  marble  bust  in  this  palace  as  "  a  good  antique 
repetition  in  marble  of  the  Ludivisi  bronze" — our  No.  13. 
In  another  place  he  writes  of  that  bronze,  and  the  bronze 
in  the  Uffizi  Museum,  Florence,  as  being  imitations  of  the 
Casali  marble  head.  I  regret  not  being  permitted  to 


ROME  99 

visit  the  Casali  Palace,  and  not  to  find  either  engraving 
or  photograph  of  the  bust.  I  heard  doubts  expressed 
whether  it  is  now  in  Italy.  Is  not  the  bust  in  the  Edin- 
burgh Museum  of  Antiquities,  our  No.  81,  probably  this 
same  Cassali  bust? 

No.  16.  [B.  12].  Torlonia  collection.  To  this  I  was 
denied  access.  Bernoulli  mentions  No.  416  as  a  genuine 
Caesar,  but  his  description  without  an  engraving  does  not 
enlighten  us  much.  I  saw  a  life-size  marble  bust  of  Julius 
Caesar  which  I  supposed  might  be  modern,  in  the  arcade  of 
the  ground  court  of  the  Torlonia  Palace  on  the  Corso.  It 
seemed  to  me  to  be  an  excellent  and  interesting  portraiture, 
but  whether  it  is,  or  is  not,  the  one  Bernoulli  mentions  as 
an  antique  I  did  not  learn.  In  default  of  the  privilege  of 
examining,  sketching,  or  photographing  it,  an  illustration  is 
lacking.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  good  Caesars  of  the 
Torlonia  collection  may  ere  long  be  released  from  their 
hiding. 

No.  17.  [B.  14].  Museo  Spada.  This  palace  is  credited 
by  Bernoulli  with  an  antique  bust  of  Caesar.  I  was  taken 
through  the  museum  by  the  custodian,  and  by  him  repeatedly 
assured  that  there  was  no  bust  of  Julius  Caesar  in  that 
collection.  The  inference  is  that  it  has  been  sold  out  of 
Italy.  Whenever  rediscovered  its  portrait  may  grace  this 

number. 

p 

No.  18.  Corsini  Gallery.  The  plate  No.  XVII  is  from  a 
photograph  kindly  procured  for  me  while  this  work  is 


100      PORTRAITURES    OF   JULIUS    C^SAR 

going  through  the  press,  by  my  friend,  Monsignor  D.  J. 
O'Connell  of  Rome.  The  bust  is  supposed  to  be  of 
marble,  life-size.  Bernoulli  does  not  mention  it.  It  was 
not  in  public  view,  I  think,  while  I  was,  presumably, 
finding  all  the  Caesars  supposed  to  be  in  this  gallery. 
Perhaps  Italian  iconographists  have  assured  themselves 
that  it  is  not  antique,  and  therefore  not  of  the  class 
to  be  catalogued  in  public  galleries  as  precious.  But 
the  line  of  division  between  all  these  portraitures  is  too 
shadowy  to  allow  pedantry  concerning  the  degrees  of  their 
antiquity  to  be  authoritative  to  open-minded  seekers  for 
the  semblance  of  our  Julius.  This  bust  is,  therefore, 
welcome  in  the  family  gallery.  It  is  to  some  extent 
unique,  yet  allied  to  the  Pisa  type. 

I  am  not  able  to  offer  a  line  of  its  history,  or  opinions 
of  learned  Italians  concerning  it.  Like  the  Tresoria  bust 
of  the  Pitti  Palace,  Florence  (our  No.  28),  it  seems 
to  have  been  held  aside  from  the  public  galleries  and 
uncatalogued. 

In  the  entrance  corridor  of  the  Corsini  Gallery,  No.  8, 
on  the  left  side,  is  a  head  marked  "  Portrait  of  a  Roman  of 
the  time  of  the  Republic."  I  introduce  this  sketch  (Fig.  9) 
with  some  sense  of  humour  in  the  intrusion  of  it  into  the 
Caesar  family,  but  also  with  some  feeling  that  if  the  experts 
have  labelled  it  justly  as  to  its  age,  there  are  traits  in  it  so 
familiar  in  the  Caesar  faces  known  that  the  family  resem- 
blance entitles  it  to  be  illustrated.  It  is  a  marble  head  and 
neck  a  little  less  than  life-size,  so  strikingly  individualized, 


PLATE  XVII 


BUST  OF  JULIUS  C^SAB,  IN  THE  CORSINI  GALLERY,  ROME 


ROME 


101 


and  so  well  modelled,  that  we  feel  it  to  be  a  real  character,  a 
strong  character,  and  a  notable 
man.  The  marble  bears  cir- 
cumstantial evidence  of  great 
age,  long  exposure  to  the  air, 
and  earth  contact.  It  was  dis- 
covered minus  the  end  of  its 
nose,  and  with  eyebrows  slightly 
crumbled,  but  otherwise  intact. 
It  seems  a  man  of  fifty.  The 
nose  is  too  large  for  Caesar's, 
but  the  lower  one-third  of  it  is 
a  restoration  that  could  be 
bettered ;  the  forehead  is  too 
narrow,  the  fulness  of  his  head 
is  wanting.  Still  it  resembles 
him.  A  Roman  friend  re- 
marked of  it,  "  It  is  a  lawyerly  face." 

In  the  same  gallery  is  a  half  life-size  marble  bust, 
numbered  501,  from  the  Torlonia  collection  .('/Racolta 
Torlonia"),  on  a  window-sill,  which  impressed-.^,;  asv a 
Renaissance  study  based  on  the  marble  statue;' o'r,  bust :  now. 
in  the  Berlin  Museum.  It  is  a  strong  face  to  represent 
Julius  Caesar,  but  has  no  quality  of  expression  not  found  in 
other  busts. 

No.  19.  [B.  13].  Doria  Gallery  (our  Fig.  10).  Bernoulli 
mentions  this  as  a  beautiful  head.  It  is  life-size,  of  dark 


FIG.  9 


102      PORTRAITURES   OF   JULIUS   C^SAR 


FIG.  10 


gray  marble  with  light  veinings, 
undoubtedly  a  mediaeval  work  by 
some  artist  who  had  opportunities 
to  study  coins  and  traditional  busts 
of  Caesar.  The  vignette,  from  a 
hasty  sketch  of  my  own,  indicates 
its  profile,  and  its  variation  from 
standard  types.  Respect  for  Ber- 
noulli's opinion,  and  his  inclusion 
of  it  with  the  numbered  Caesars, 
induces  me  to  give  it  a  place  in  this  collection. 

In  the  Statuary  room  of  the  Doria  Gallery,  on  the  west 
window  still  farthest  from  the  entrance,  is  a  half  life-size 
marble  bust  which  shows  a  blending  of  the  faces  of  Julius 
and  Augustus  Caesar,  say  for  thirty  years  of  age.  The 
narrow  mouth  represents  the  latter,  other  features,  the 
former.  Busts  of  Augustus  were  made  so  numerously 
during  his  long  reign  and  since,  and  those  of  the  young 
Augustus,  beautifully  flattered,  have  become  so  popular,  that 
it  may  be  fairly  conjectured  that  studies  for  the  young 
Julius,  may  have  fallen  into  the  catalogue  of  Augustuses. 


s.  .20;:21.  [B.  16,  17].  Villa  Mattel  —  Hoffmann. 
Formerly  there  were  in  this  palace  collection  two  statues 
(figured  in  Clarac,  plate  910  l)  to  which  I  could  not  get  ac- 
cess, and  of  which  I  could  find  no  photographs.  The  outline 


Frederick  de  Clarac,  Muse'e  de  Sculpture  Antique  et  Moderns, 
Imprimerie  Nationale,  1850,  6  Vols.  text,  and  6  Vols.  plates,  folio.  A  superb 
illustrated  work,  paid  for  by  the  French  government. 


ROME 


103 


engravings  in  Clarac  would  enable  one  to  identify  the  forms 
and  costumes,  but  are  of  no  value  to  give  a  clear  idea  of  the 
portraitures.  As  statues,  the  engravings  give  them  a  noble 
air,  and  I  greatly  regret  their  retirement  from  public  study. 
Whether  the  two  heads  as  portraitures  have  value  could  be 
readily  determined  by  photographs  — if  in  a  good  light. 

No.  22.  Villa  Mattei  —  Hoffman.  In  the  open  garden  near 
the  house  is  a  striking  life-size  bust  of  Caesar,  supposed  to 
be  mediaeval  or  Renaissance 
work.  Probably  modelled  in 
Rome  at  a  period  when  valu- 
able busts  of  Caesar,  now  in 
part  scattered  over  Europe, 
were  to  be  seen  in  the  collec- 
tions of  the  great  Italian 
families  of  Rome.  The  sculp- 
tor has  made  a  composite  ideal 
•  that  is  interesting.  The  pro- 
file (Fig.  11)  from  my  sketch 
does  not  give  the  most  Caesa- 
rean  expression  of  the  bust. 
A  three-quarter  view  on  the 
opposite  side  would  represent 
it  better.  The  bust  stands 
on  a  pedestal  covered  with  old  Roman  inscriptions,  but 
not  supposed  to  have  any  connection  with  it.  The  nose 
has  been  badly  broken,  but  the  original  pieces  seem  to  have 
been  restored  so  that  the  head  is  practically  as  the  sculptor 


FIG.  11 


104      PORTRAITURES    OF   JULIUS   CvESAR 

made  it.  That  this  bust  has  not  been  noticed  before  is 
due  simply  to  the  fact  that  only  supposed  antiques  have 
been  considered  of  value. 

No.  23.  Palazzo  Borghese  —  in  the  city.1  This  fine 
marble  bust  occupies  a  very  high  oval  niche  in  the  gorgeous 

hall  "Mario  dei  Fiore "  of 
the  old  palace,  known  also  as 
the  Galleria  Sangiorgi.  It  is 
of  the  collection  of  Pope 
Paul  V  (1605-1621),  who  was 
of  the  Borghese  family,  and 
lived  in  this  palace.  It  is  a 
little  more  than  life-size,  of 
the  type  of  the  Pisa  bust;  a 
composite  study  not  claimed 
as  antique,  but  supposed  to 
be  by  an  able  sculptor  of  the 
Pope,  who  would  be  familiar 
with  all  known  busts  of  Caesar 
at  that  time.  Whether  these 

FIG.  12 

busts  are  made  to  adorn  the 

hall,  or  whether  the  niches  were  made  for  previously  valued 
busts,  I  could  not  learn.  The  face  is  a  noble  presence,  with 
high  forehead,  more  vertical  than  this  feature  on  the  Vatican 
busts.  The  fact  that  it  is  unmentioned  by  Visconti,  Clarac, 

1  The  reader  not  familiar  with  Rome  may  need  to  be  informed  that  the 
Borghese  palace  in  the  city,  and  the  Villa  Borghese  in  the  great  park  of  that 
family,  are  distinct  places. 


PLATE  XVIII 


JULIUS   C.ESAR,    OP  THE    NATIONAL    MUSEUM,    BATHS    OF   DIOCLETIAN,    ROME 


ROME 


105 


and  Bernoulli  indicates  that  it  has  no  claim  to  antiquity; 
yet  its  early  existence  in  the  papal  collection  might  even 
raise  a  doubt  on  that  point.  As  we  cannot  find  any  au- 
thentic data  to  prove  or  disprove  the  antiquity  of  any  of 
the  busts,  —  that  is,  to  prove  them  to  be  of  Caesar's  own 
time,  —  I  include  all  that  are  admirable  in  themselves  in  this 
collection. 

No.  24.  National  Museum  of  the  Baths  of  Diocletian. 
This  new  find,  or  belated  exhibit  of  an  old  find,  seems  to  have 
a  mystery  around  it.  It  has 
but  lately  been  set  up  on  side 
III  of  the  great  court  of  the 
Cloister,  where  it  is  perched 
on  a  fluted  broken  column, 
numbered  1  on  base  of  bust, 
and  entered  in  the  catalogue, 
"  Julius  Caesar  (?) ".  An  em- 
ployee told  me  it  was  from 
Ostia,  and  Professor  Vaglieri 
chided  him  for  telling  more 
than  he  knew.  I  went  to 
Professor  Gatti,  the  director 
of  the  museum,  for  informa- 
tion. He  could  only  inform 
me  that  it  was  recently  trans- 
ferred from  the  government's  storehouse  of  antiquities,  ex- 
humed sometime  and  somewhere  about  Rome.  I  went  to 
a  distinguished  authority,  Signor  Lanciani,  for  information, 


FIG.  13 


106      PORTRAITURES    OF   JULIUS   CESAR 

and  learned  from  him  that  he  did  not  know  of  its  exist- 
ence. But  he  assured  me  that  it  could  not  be  from  Ostia, 
the  Palatine,  the  Forum,  or  any  other  dry  earth  explorations 
made  by  the  government  since  1870,  but  that  it  might 
have  come  from  the  excavations  of  the  Tiber.  These  have 
been  very  extensive  during  the  past  thirty  years,  for  the 
foundations  of  the  new  bridges  and  the  superb  new  quays. 

They  have  probably  been  less  closely 
watched  by  officials  of  the  government 
antiquarium  than  the  others,  and  it 
seems  to  be  conceded  that  the  govern- 
ment warehouses  may  have  many  finds 
which  are  little  known.  It  is  not  even 
certain  that  all  exhumed  antiques,  or 
supposed  antiques,  from  the  bed  of 
the  Tiber  have  always  been  deposited 
under  the  government's  roofs.  It  is 
known  that  some  have  fallen  into  the 
hands  of  private  purchasers,  or  favoured 
donees. 

The  bust  under  consideration,  what- 
ever its  origin  may  have  been,  is  as  clearly  a  Julius  Caesar 
as  any  known,  and  is  as  likely  to  be  an  antique  of  near  his 
time  as  nine-tenths  of  those  which  are  accepted  and  cata- 
logued as  such  in  the  great  public  museums.  The  fact  that 
it  remains  as  found,  without  any  misleading  restorations, 
makes  it  more  interesting  than  if  it  had  been  puttered  over. 
Fortunately,  each  part  of  a  feature  which  is  lacking,  has  parts 
remaining  that  indicate  with  much  clearness  the  feature  as  it 


ROME  107 

must  have  been.  The  form  of  the  head  is  unmarred,  and 
imagination  can  readily  restore  the  parts  of  the  face  that  are 
lost,  upon  the  parts  existing.  The  original  was  clearly  in 
harmony  with  other  types  accepted  of  him,  and  to  some 
extent  a  connecting  link  between  them.  The  forehead  is 
high,  not  so  vertical  as  in  the .  Naples  bust  and  the  Con- 
servatori  statue  of  Rome,  nor  as  retreating  as  in  the  bronze 
of  Florence  (No.  25),  or  the  marble  head  of  the  British 
Museum.  The  nose,  if  completed  as  indicated  by  the  lines 
of  fracture  remaining,  would  be  of  the  high-bridge  Roman 
type  —  assuredly  not  a  straight  nose.  The  mouth  is 
clumsily  finished,  as  of  a  figure  not  intended  for  near  sight, 
a  deep  cut  being  made  at  the  joining  of  the  lips.  Both 
the  latter  are  slightly  chipped.  The  loss  of  even  these 
fragments  from  the  most  expressive  of  all  the  features 
prevents  the  mouth  from  having  just  its  original  expres- 
sion. It  is  a  feature  so  mobile  and  subtle  in  its  varied 
expressions  that  when  marred  in  marble  it  can  hardly 
be  perfectly  restored.  The  chin  as  it  was,  jutting  boldly 
from  the  deep  recession  below  the  under-lip,  is  indicated 
with  singular  certainty  by  the  outline  of  the  fracture. 
One  eyebrow  has  been  much  chipped,  but  here  the  parts 
missing  can  be  clearly  surmised  from  the  parts  remaining. 
The  bust  as  a  whole  is  rather  a  coarse  work  technically, 
designed  apparently  for  an  out-of-door  place,  not  near  the 
eye.  The  vignette,  Fig.  14,  is  from  my  sketch.  Plate  XIX 
and  Fig.  13  are  from  photographs.  The  great  value  of  this 
find  consists  mainly  in  its  being  a  connecting  link  in  forms 
and  expression  between  several  types  of  Caesar. 


108      PORTRAITURES   OF   JULIUS   C^SAR 

No.  00. 1  The  Barracco  collection  in  Rome,  I  learned, 
contains  a  Julius  Caesar  recovered  from  the  delta  of  the 
Nile.  I  failed  to  obtain  the  courtesy  of  permission  to 
visit  it.  I  found,  however,  in  Helbig's  Barracco  Collec- 
tion, a  quarto  volume  in  the  British  Museum,  large 
engravings  of  its  profile  and  front  face.  That  author 
hails  it  as  a  Julius  Caesar  of  great  value.  The  engravings 
show  no  evidence  to  my  mind  that  it  is  intended  for  him. 
Helbig  describes  it  as  of  dark  granite  or  diorite.  The 
engravings  show  a  crude  piece  of  sculptural  work,  with 
not  one  feature,  besides  the  nose,  in  harmony  with  the 
Roman  marbles  which  are  conceded  to  be  Julius  Caesar's 
portraitures.  It  belongs  to  the  same  order  of  coarse  work 
and  vague  characterization  as  the  half  life-size  basalt  in  the 
British  Museum  (our  No.  63),  also  found  in  Egypt. 

No.  00.  Garden  of  the  Pincio.  Among  the  innumer- 
able busts  which  adorn  the  walks  and  drives  of  this  extraor- 
dinarily interesting  resort,  is  one  on  the  walk  next  to 
the  Villa  Medici,  marked  Julius  Caesar,  b}'  Batti  Raggi ; 
made  apparently  in  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
It  seems  to  rne  a  poor  work,  as  if  the  sculptor  had  chosen 
one  of  the  bad  coin  heads  for  his  model,  and  had  studied 
little  else.  It  is  peculiarly  unfortunate  that  among  the 
scores  of  busts  added  to  the  Pincio  during  the  last  half  of 
the  nineteenth  century,  most  of  which  are  gems  of  sculptural 
portraiture  of  Italy's  greatest  men,  the  latest  generally  the 
best,  that  the  most  remarkable  man  of  her  race  should  have 
no  good  representation. 

1  No.  00 :  nondescripts.     See  Appendix. 


FLORENCE  109 

The  preceding  numbers  embrace  all  of  the  Julius  Caesars 
I  was  enabled  to  study  in  Rome.  If  this  book  shall  come 
to  the  attention  of  gentlemen  who  know  of  unnoticed 
busts  or  statues  there,  information  concerning  them  will 
be  gratefully  acknowledged,  and  if  accompanied  by  photo- 
graphs of  the  same  will  be  most  valued. 

FLORENCE 

I 

No.  25.  [B.  19].  Uffizi  Museum,  No.  3587.  A  life-size 
bronze  head  and  neck  set  in  a  white  marble  toga-bust 
(Fig.  15).  The  mere  fact  that  it  is  in  this  famous  museum 
has  made  this  a  notable  bust.  At  first  sight  it  seems  a 
brother  of  the  Ludivisi  bronze  (No. 
13) ;  but  careful  comparison  reveals 
that  this  is  a  much  better  work. 
The  profiles  are  similar ;  but  the 
head  of  this  bust  is  higher,  longer, 
and  deeper  back  of  the  ears  than 
that,  and  the  forehead  higher  and 
less  indented.  The  eyes  are  larger, 
the  mouth  longer.  In  short  it  is  a 
little  better  at  all  points,  sufficiently 
so  to  make  the  difference  bettveen  a  good  work  and  a  bad 
one.  It  is  the  one  that  the  writer  first  selected  to  typify 
the  executive  Caesar,  when  classification  by  types  was 
intended.  Professor  Ridolfi,  the  venerable  and  very  cour- 
teous director  of  the  museum,  informed  me  that  it  has 
no  history,  back  of  the  fact  that  it  came  from  the  Medici 
collection  in  Rome  in  the  sixteenth  century.  This  fact 


110      PORTRAITURES    OF   JULIUS    C^SAR 


alone  confers  little  value,  as  the  collections  of  the  great 
Roman  families  of  that  day  were  mostly  made  about  six- 
teen hundred  years  after  Caesar's  death.  We  can  simply 
credit  the  richest  families  with  having  purchased  from  other 
old  families  the  best  they  could  buy.  But  choice  antique 
heirlooms  are  not  always  to  be  bought  even  from  poor 
families.  Rich  men's  agents  buy  only  what  is  purchasable, 
and  sometimes  recommend  the  purchase  of  that  piece  which 
they  can  get  the  best  commission  on.  Once  introduced 
into  a  great  family  gallery,  such  pieces  are  likely  to  have 
consideration  beyond  their  merits,  while  better  pieces  may 
remain  obscure.  I  do  not  believe  that  the  mouth  of  this 
figure  is  a  good  representation  of  Caesar's  mouth,  nor  that 
the  forms  or  lines  of  the  cheeks  are  good.  But  on  the 
whole  it  is  one  of  a  type  of  portraits  which  demands 
attention  as  an  excellent  piece  of  work,  and  a  possible 
antique  recognizable  as  intended  for  Julius  Caesar. 

No.  26.  [B.  20].  Uffizi  Museum, 
No.  3586.  A  life-size  marble  having 
a  vague  resemblance  to  the  Pontifex 
Maximus  of  the  Vatican,  but  greatly 
inferior.  The  cranium  from  front  to 
back  is  disproportionately  short  com- 
pared with  the  length  of  the  face. 
Seen  in  profile,  it  is  not  easy  to  be- 
lieve it  intended  for  Caesar,  but  as  the 
antiquarian  experts  in  Florence  have  conceded  it  this  title, 
I  bow  to  authority  and  give  it  place  in  the  collection. 


FIG.  16 


PLATE   XIX 


JULIUS   C,ESAR,    OF   THE    "  TRESORIA,"    PlTTI   PALACE.    FLORENCE 


FLORENCE  111 

Of  course  it  is  a  poor  work,  or  its  identity  would  not  be 
doubted.  It  has  been  badly  marred,  and  badly  restored ; 
so  that,  however  imperfect  a  portraiture  originally,  it  is 
worse  now.  Seen  in  full  face,  it  is  much  more  Caesarean 
than  in  the  profile  shown  by  my  sketch.  The  reader's 
attention  is  called  to  remarks  made  on  a  bust  found  in 
Turin,  our  No.  37. 

No.  27.  [B.  21].  Uffizi  Museum,  Inscription  Hall.  On 
a  very  high  bracket,  in  a  dark  place  near  the  ceiling,  is 
a  life-size  bust  that  from  the  floor  below  looks  so  like  a 
Julius  Caesar  that  it  piqued  my  curiosity.  Professor  Ridolfi, 
the  director,  very  kindly  had  it  taken  down  for  inspection, 
and  he  agreed  with  me,  after  thus  seeing  it,  that  it  did 
not  seem  to  be  intended  for  a  Caesar,  though  Bernoulli 
accepts  it  as  such.  The  latter  remarks  that  it  resembles 
the  British  Museum  bust,  but  the  resemblance  disappears 
on  close  inspection.  I  retain  it  in  this  list  out  of  respect 
for  that  distinguished  authority. 

No.  28.  In  the  "  Tresoria,"  or  King's  Treasure  room, 
of  the  Pitti  Palace.  Here  I  found,  almost  by  accident,  a 
life-size,  very  antique-looking  marble  head,  not  mentioned  in 
the  museum  catalogues,  nor  by  Bernoulli,  nor  by  any  previous 
author,  so  far  as  I  can  learn ;  yet  it  seems  to  me  one  of  the 
most  interesting  of  all  the  busts  of  Julius  Caesar.  It  is 
Julius  the  Thinker :  a  sort  of  Hamlet  face.  There  is  no 
bust  of  him  in  which  the  sculptor  has  embodied  more  quiet 
intellectuality.  It  suggests  a  study  of  him  in  the  solitude  of 


112      PORTRAITURES   OF   JULIUS   C^SAR 


privacy,  canvassing  questions  of  deep  import :  a  subtile 
study,  and  an  exquisite  piece  of  sculptural  work.  The  por- 
trait opposite  is  taken  from  my  plaster  cast  of  the  original, 
with  too  full  a  light  upon  it,  so  that  the  engraving  does  not 
do  justice  to  the  fine  modelling  of  the  marble.  The  vig- 
nette profile  (Fig.  17)  is  from  my  own  sketch.  A  part  of 
the  nose,  a  point  of  the  chin,  and  a  bit  of  the  left  eyebrow 

are  restorations.  The  head  is 
long  and  large,  the  face  seem- 
ing small,  relatively.  The 
marble  head  and  neck  bear 
marks  of  age  and  soil.  It 
certainly  does  not  look  like  a 
modern  piece,  or  a  mediaeval 
forgery.  The  restorations,  I 
think,  have  been  well  done. 
The  nose  is  one  of  the 
straightest,  but  not  being 
the  original  has  no  authority 

to  determine  the  doubt  as  to 

i 

whether  the  high-bridge  noses, 

like  those  of  the  Parma  bust  and  the  Berlin  statue  and  some 
of  the  coins,  are  absolutely  incorrect,  or  only  exaggerations. 
See  No.  6,  on  the  plate  at  the  head  of  this  chapter,  and  full 
page  plate  opposite.  I  could  not,  while  in  Florence,  learn  the 
history  of  this  bust.  The  titled  custodian  of  the  "  Tresoria  " 
in  1899  was  as  ignorant  of  it  as  a  King  of  Congo. 

Since  the  above  was  written  I  have  received  a  letter  from 
the   director   of   the   Archaeological   Museum   of    Florence, 


FLORENCE 


113 


Signer  Luigi  N.  Melani,  dated  July  23,  1901,  of  which  the 
following  is  a  translation  :  — 

"  This  bust  of  Julius  Caesar  which  interests  you  so  much 
used  to  be  in  the  Giovanni  da  San  Giovanni  Hall  much 
earlier  than  the  time  when  this  hall  was  used  for  the  exposi- 
tion of  the  silver  of  Palazzo  Pitti.  In  the  work  of  JJutschke 
zerstrente  antike  Bildwerke  in  Florenz  (Leipsic,  1875),  it  seems 
to  be  described  at  page  27,  but  the  identification  is  not  cer- 
tain. From  the  different  inventory  numbers  which  it  bears 
(66  yellow,  836  red,  268  blue,  468  green,  etc.)  we  infer  that 
it  was  a  part  of  the  Medici's  wardrobe.  The  origin  of  said 
bust  could  perhaps  be  ascertained  by  a  retrospective  study  of 
the  inventories,  a  study  which  I  have  caused  to  be  made, 
but  which  is  as  yet  unfinished.  .  .  .  The  marble  of  which 
it  is  made  is  lunette  gray,  and  the  workmanship  is  good, 
though  upon  bronze  model,  as  I  believe.  The  restored  parts 
are  made  of  stucco  or  terra-cotta, 
a  fact  which  leads  me  to  believe  that 
the  restoration  was  accomplished  in 
the  fourteenth  or  sixteenth  centuries." 


No.  29.  Palazzo  Ricardo.  A  life- 
size  wrhite  marble  head  and  neck  on 
a  high  bracket  at  left  side  of  main 
entrance  to  the  court :  not  claimed, 
as  far  as  I  am  aware,  as  a  Julius 
Caesar,  but  bearing  so  much  resem- 
blance to  some  coin  profiles  of  him  as  to  suggest  that  it 
may  have  been  made  for  him.  As  a  study  by  some 


FIG.  18 


114      PORTRAITURES    OF   JULIUS   C^SAR 

mediaeval  sculptor,  it  may  be  worth  attention.  The  vig- 
nette, Fig.  18,  is  from  my  sketch-book. 

PISA 

No.  30.    [B.  22].     «  Campo  Santo  "  Museum  of  Art,  No. 
21867.     This  life-size  marble  head  and  neck  has  long  been 

famous  for  the  excellence  of 
its  modelling,  and  its  supposed 
life-likeness.  Were  the  origi- 
nal nose  upon  it,  possibly  it 
might  nearly  satisfy  the  mind 
as  a  good  likeness  of  Julius 
Caesar.  But  the  nose  is  a 
very  bad  restoration.  It  mars 
the  expression,  and  confuses 
one's  first  impression.  Imag- 
ine a  strong,  slightly  Roman 
nose,  in  the  place  of  this 
sharp-pointed,  and  almost  re- 
trousse restoration,  and  we 
would  then  have  a  harmonious 

FIG.  19 

and    really  acceptable  Caesar 

face ;  though  the  mouth  decidedly  lacks  the  expression  of 
powerful  reserve  force  to  be  seen  on  the  Parma  bust.  It  is 
of  the  same  general  type  as  that,  and  our  No.  6  of  the 
Vatican ;  the  inferior  nose  and  thinner  lips  lessening  the  resem- 
blance. The  Renaissance  sculptors  of  Rome  seem  to  have 
been  partial  to  it  in  constructing  their  own  composite  ideals. 
The  mouth  not  only  lacks  the  generous  fulness  and  strength 


PLATE  XX 


JULIUS   C^iSAR,   OF  THE  CAMPO   SANTO,   PlSA 


PISA— PARMA 


115 


that  we  shall  soon  see  in  the  Parma  bust,  but  also  the  finer 
and  more  delicately  expressed  strength  of  the  British  Mu- 
seum bust.  Even  had  it  the 
original  nose,  this  bust  would 
not  show  that  robust  and 
audacious  will-power  which 
the  Parma  bust  expresses, 
nor  the  charms  of  the  other 
side  of  his  character  which  the 
Vatican  bust,  No.  107  (our 
No.  6),  and  others  suggest, 
and  which  the  Parma  bust 
does  not  suggest.  Aside  from 
the  nose  and  mouth,  there  is 
no  finer  head  of  Caesar  than 
this.  No  one  head  known 
more  completely  characterizes 
him.  It  is  classed  by  Italian 
experts  as  an  antique,  but  I  did  not  learn  any  history  of  it 
or  the  evidences  on  which  their  conclusions  were  based. 


FIG.  20 


PARMA 

No.  31.  [B.  23].  This  half  life-size  marble  head  is 
kept  in  a  glass  case  in  the  Museum  of  Antiquities  in 
Parma,  and  is  probably  the  least  seen  and  known  of  all 
the  valued  busts  of  Julius  Caesar.  It  is  also  the  latest 
find  of  them  all,  the  head  and  neck  having  been  found 
as  lately  as  1812  in  excavations  of  the  old  Villa  de 
Velleia,  near  Piacenza.  It  is  thought  by  antiquarians  to 


116      PORTRAITURES   OF   JULIUS   CESAR 


be  one  of  the  earliest  in  date.  Without  pretending  to 
the  Italian  antiquarians'  technical  bases  of  judgment,  I 
will  venture  to  write  that  it  seems  to  me  more  likely  to 
date  back  to  the  years  of  Caesar's  governorship  of  north- 
ern Italy  and  Gaul  than  any  of  all  the  portraitures  I 
have  seen ;  that  is  to  say,  about  ten  years  before  any 
of  the  miserable  coin  dies  were  made  which  are  assumed 

to  represent  him.  I  con- 
sider it  one  of  the  best  por- 
traitures. But  this  is  not 
to  say  that  it  expresses  all 
that  a  bust  of  him  should 
express.  The  noble  compla- 
cency of  the  Naples  bust  is 
wanting.  The  intellectual 
and  will  power  expressed 
give  no  suggestion  of  gra- 
cious suavity  and  habitual 
kindliness  which  may  be 
recognized  in  the  Naples, 
the  Vatican,  and  the  British  Museum  busts,  and  in  the 
Capitdline  statue.  These  characteristics  were  as  much  a 
part  of  Caesar  as  his  audacity  or  his  intellectual  eleva- 
tion. Our  No.  28,  the  Tresoria  bust  of  Florence,  which 
I  have  called  Caesar  the  Thinker,  is  less  intense  and  more 
reposeful  than  this  Parma  bust  —  is  of  a  gentler  mood. 
This  is  the  Caesar  Dominator. 

The  projection  of   the  upper  part  of   the  nose  is  more 
marked    than    in   any    other   head    except    our   No.    3,   of 


FIG.  21 


PLATE  XXI 


JULIUS   C^SAR,   OF   THE   PARMA   MUSEUM   OF   ANTIQUITIES 


PARMA  —  BOLOGNA  117 

the  Conservator!  corridor,  and  that  of  the  Berlin  statue, 
—  all,  probably,  exaggerations.  The  lower  end  of  the 
nose  is  a  restoration,  and  is,  I  am  sure,  a  trifle  shorter 
than  the  original,  and  has  been  cut  down  and  slightly 
deformed  by  the  restorer,  to  smooth  over  lines  of  fracture. 
With  the  original  nose  I  imagine  the  expression  to  have 
been  rather  nobler.  Otherwise,  the  marble  was  found  quite 
complete,  though  a  little  chipping  from  the  lips  slightly 
mars  their  expression.  The  feature  that  is  most  peculiar 
in  this  bust  is  the  mouth.  The  upper  and  lower  lips  alike 
express  more  will-force  and  instinct  of  domination  than  is 
found  in  any  other  portrait  of  him.  The  two  which  rival 
it  are  the  black  bronze  of  the  Cabinet  des  Medaittes,  Paris, 
(our  No.  50),  and  the  miniature  bronze  of  the  Bibliotheka 
Nationale  of  Madrid  (our  No.  59). 

I  had  much  trouble  to  secure  a  plaster  cast  of  this 
valuable  bust ;  but  at  last,  thanks  to  a  permit  from  the 
Director  General  of  Fine  Arts  in  Italy,  Signer  C.  Fiorelli  of 
Rome,  to  Professor  Mariotti  of  Parma,  it  was  sent  to  me 
with  the  statement  that  it  was  the  first  copy  which  had 
been  made !  The  plate  is  from  a  photograph  of  this  cast, 
and  the  profile,  Fig.  21,  is  from  my  own  sketch  of  the 
original. 

BOLOGNA 

In  the  hall  of  the  Hotel  Braur,  once  a  palace,  adorned 
with  busts  of  the  Roman  Emperors,  executed  in  the  period 
of  the  Renaissance,  is  a  bust,  evidently  for  Julius  Caesar, 
well  featured,  with  a  particularly  well  formed  head,  which 


118      PORTRAITURES   OF   JULIUS    CESAR 

resembles  the  head  from  Italica  in  Spain  that  I  sketched 
in  the  Casa  Pilatos  of  Sevilla,  our  No.  63  (Fig.  45).  I 
made  a  good  sketch  of  this  Bologna  bust,  which  was 
lost.  In  the  hall  where  found,  the  busts  are  on  pedestals 
bearing  names  of  the  busts  supposed  to  be  above  them. 
But  the  heads  have  changed  pedestals,  so  that  when  I  was 
there  all  were  in  merry  confusion. 

MANTUA 

No.  32.  [B.  24].  Bernoulli  mentions  this  as  of  the 
same  type  as  the  Parma  bust,  without  other  comments.  As 
circumstances  turned  me  from  a  visit  to  Mantua,  I  relied 
on  the  courtesy  of  a  reply  from  the  director  of  the  Mantua 
Museum,  to  whom  I  wrote  several  times  to  secure  a  photo- 
graph of  his  half  life-size  Caesar,  but  never  received  a  reply. 
I  regret  to  have  no  illustration  of  it,  not  having  been  able 
to  find  one. 

VENICE 

No.  33.  [B.  26].  Doge's  Palace.  An  armor-clad  life-size 
marble  bust  of  the  sixteenth  century.  I  had  only  a  dark 
day  to  see  this  bust,  which  occupies  a  shaded  place  at  the 
best ;  but  I  formed  an  impression  that  it  has  little  signifi- 
cance as  a  portraiture. 

No.  34.  [B.  27].  Castle  of  Catajo.  Bernoulli  describes 
it  as  resembling  the  Berlin  marble  bust  and  marks  it 
"  modern."  As  I  failed  to  find  the  whereabouts  of  the 
Castle  of  Catajo,  I  could  make  no  notes  on  this  bust. 


TURIN 


119 


TURIN 

No.  35.  [B.  28].  Museum  of  Antiquities,  entrance  hall. 
This  life-size  marble  bust  seemed  to  me  a  modern  or  a 
mediaeval  work,  and  I  am  surprised  to  find  it  noticed  by 
Bernoulli  without  the  caution  "  modern."  It  did  not  im- 
press me  as  valuable. 

No.  36.  Antique  Museum.  Here,  on  a  high  shelf, 
aloof  from  common  observation,  I  found  a  marble  head  and 
neck  that  seemed  to  me  one 
of  the  most  interesting  of  the 
little-known  heads  of  Julius 
Caesar.  Bernoulli  makes  no 
mention  of  it.  It  is  possibly 
a  little  more  than  life-size, 
and  admirably  modelled.  The 
crown  of  the  head  above  the 
forehead  is  gone.  The  head 
is  thrown  back  and  to  one 
side,  as  in  no  other  bust. 
The  original  nose  has  been 
replaced  by  such  a  preposter- 
ous one  as  to  deform  the 
expression  of  the  face.  The  original,  at  its  root,  would 
permit  any  pattern  of  Caesar  nose  to  be  built  below  it. 
The  forehead  is  lofty,  less  vertical  than  the  Naples  and 
Conservatori  heads,  the  eyes  and  mouth  decidedly  large, 
the  modelling  of  the  cheeks,  mouth,  and  chin,  and  the  whole 


120      PORTRAITURES    OF   JULIUS    C^SAR 

expression  (if  one  can  be  blind  to  the  nose),  decidedly 
Caesarean.  It  is  so  excellent  and  interesting  a  piece  of 
work,  and  so  completely  suggestive  of  great  antiquity,  that 
it  deserves  more  attention  and  better  treatment  than  it  has 
received.  The  inset  engraving,  Fig.  22,  is  from  a  sketch 
that  I  made  from  the  top  of  a  step-ladder,  from  which 
alone  I  could  have  a  fair  look  at  it.  It  is  a  faithful  repre- 
sentation, from  a  much  better  point  of  view  than  the  one 
from  which  the  photographer  took  it,  with  the  "  death- 
mask,"  as  seen  on  the  left  in  the  engraving  below. 


FIG.  23 


No.  37.  In  the  same  museum  and  room  as  the  preced- 
ing, on  a  table  or  low  shelf,  where  quite  a  number  of  antique 
busts  are  exhibited,  my  attention  was  called  to  a  supposed 


PLATE  XXII 


'DEATH  MASK"  (?)  OF  JULIUS  C^SAR,  IN  THE  MUSEUM  OF  ANTIQUITIES,  TURIN 


TURIN  121 

Julius  Caesar.  It  proved  to  be  a  curious  and  most  interest- 
ing study.  See  Plate  No.  XXI,  and  the  right-hand  figure 
on  engraving  of  preceding  page.  It  impresses  one  like  a 
death-mask.  But  death-masks  are  not  of  marble,  nor  of 
an  entire  head.  This  is  both.  In  describing  the  Pontifex 
Maximus  bust  in  the  Vatican  (our  No.  8)  this  head  is 
referred  to,  and  a  theory  there  advanced  of  which  this 
head  is  the  suggestion.  I  would  be  pleased  to  have  the 
reader  refer  back  to  it. 

We  may  bear  in  mind  that  if  a  sculptor  were  copying 
a  death-mask  by  the  eye,  in  marble,  he  would  only  be 
careful  to  follow  the  mask  proper,  —  the  face ;  and  if 
he  wished  to  make  it  self-supporting,  so  that  it  would 
have  an  upright  position,  the  addition  of  the  neck  and 
back  head,  and  a  pedestal,  would  make  it  stand.  He  might 
naturally  be  careless  of  these  mere  accessories  of  the  mask. 
All  of  this  head,  back  of  the  ears,  is  as  bad  as  possible. 
The  nose  is  a  restoration,  and  clumsy.  The  forehead 
is  lofty,  less  broad  toward  the  ears  than  the  usual 
Caesar  type.  The  head,  in  thickness  from  ear  to  ear, 
seems  pinched ;  but  the  face,  aside  from  the  restorations, 
is  very  like  what  Caesar's  must  have  been  after  death. 
The  cheek  bones  are  very  prominent,  especially  the  right 
one ;  the  cheeks  hollow,  upper  lip  massive,  and  the  lower 
lip  and  chin  shrunken,  like  those  of  a  dead  man.  The 
chin  is  partly  chipped  away,  but  indicates  greater  size  and 
length  downward  than  most  of  the  Caesar  busts.  The 
mouth  is  very  broad,  much  broader  than  on  the  Conser- 
vatori  statue  in  Rome,  or  the  Vatican  busts.  On  the 


122      PORTRAITURES   OF   JULIUS   C^SAR 

whole  it  is  exceedingly  suggestive.  I  believe  it  to  be  a 
copy,  or  a  copy  of  a  copy,  of  a  real  death-mask.  I  am 
greatly  indebted  to  Dr.  Antonio  Tournielli,  Director  of  the 
Museum  of  Antiquities  of  Turin,  for  his  kindness  in  fur- 
nishing me  photographs  of  these  heads.  The  marbles  them- 
selves are  apparently  unvalued,  and  almost  withdrawn  from 
observation;  yet  it  seems  to  me  that  there  are  no  marbles 
of  Julius  Caesar  in  existence  that  have  a  more  interesting 
bearing  on  the  determination  of  Caesar's  head  and  features, 
or  that  do  so  much  to  form  a  connecting  link  or  raison 
d'etre  for  the  divergent  types,  as  those  neglected  pieces  of 
the  Turin  Museum. 


PLATE  XXIII 


JULIUS  CAESAR  :  BUST  OF  THE  BERLIN  ROYAL  MUSEUM 


GERMANY 


BERLIN 

No.  38.  [B.  55].  Berlin  Royal  Museum.  The  marble 
life-size  bust,  No.  1331 :  formerly  380.  This  is  classed  with 
antiques,  but  has  characteris- 
tics that  throw  doubt  on  it. 
The  face  is  fine  and  forceful ; 
the  form  of  the  head,  the  pro- 
file (except  the  nose,  which 
is  un-Caasarean),  and  the  pe- 
culiar cheeks  and  jaws,  all 
show  unmistakably  that  it  is 
intended  for  Caesar.  But  the 
expression  as  a  whole  sug- 
gests a  Renaissance  ideal  of 
some  able  sculptor  rather  than 
a  faithful  composite  work  from 
old  busts.  Bernoulli  suggests 
that  different  parts  of  the  bust 
are  not  of  the  same  date. 
Altogether  it  is  believed  to  be 
more  interesting  than  successful,  as  a  portraiture.  The 
authorities  of  the  museum  do  not  seem  disposed  to  throw 
any  light  on  its  history.  Perhaps  there  is  no  light  to  be 
thrown.  See  Plate  XXIII,  full  face,  and  Fig.  24  of  profile. 

123 


FIG.  24 


124      PORTRAITURES   OF   JULIUS    C^SAR 


No.  39.  [B.  56].  Berlin  Royal  Museum.  Toga  statue, 
heroic  size,  formerly  numbered  295,  now  341.  It  was 
obtained  from  the  Polignac  collection  in  Rome  in  1824, 
and  reputed  to  have  been  in  the  Collona  collection,  and 
"found  near  Rome."  The  head  has  a  family  likeness  to 
the  bust  just  described,  though  in  profile  quite  distinct ;  and 
like  that  bears  the  Caesar  identifications.  The  illustrations 

give  a  just  conception  of  it. 
The  head  and  neck,  which  are 
the  only  parts  of  any  value  to 
us,  do  not  belong  with  the 
body.  Bernoulli  alludes  to 
this  as  resembling  the  Parma 
bust.  In  the  outside  line  of 
the  nose  there  is  resemblance, 
but  that  is  all.  The  Parma 
bust  is  a  harmonious  piece 
of  portraiture.  This  statue 
head  has  anatomical  dispro- 
portions. The  nose  is  too 
short  from  back  of  nostril  to 
point,  and  the  head  too  high 
for  its  length.  The  last  dis- 
proportion is  at  variance  with  most  of  the  coins,  and  with 
all  the  absolutely  accepted  busts.  Nevertheless,  this  shape  of 
head  leads  us  to  imagine  that  some  sculptors,  who  have 
given  him  a  low,  long  head,  may  have  erred  in  their  extreme, 
and  that  this  higher  ideal  may  have  had  some  prototypes  in 
old  heads  that  no  longer  exist.  The  expression  of  the  head 


FIG.  25 


PLATE   XXIV 


STATUE  OF  JULIUS  CAESAR,  OF  THE  BERLIN  ROYAL  MUSEUM 


BERLIN 


125 


and  face  is  noble,  and  we  feel  that  its  resemblances  to  Caesar 
are  enough  to  entitle  it  to  be  one  of  his  representations,  even 
if  it  be  not  an  antique.  But  as  sculptural  portraiture  it  can- 
not take  rank  with  busts  like  those  of  Parma  and  Pisa,  No. 
107  of  the  Vatican,  the  Tresoria  bust  of  Florence,  or  with 
the  Naples  bust  or  the  Conservator i  statue. 

No.  40.  [B.  57].  Berlin  Royal  Museum,  No.  342,  for- 
merly 291.  A  black  basalt  bust,  life-size  as  to  the  face, 
and  of  a  deformed  littleness 
of  head.  This  is  said  to  have 
been  a  favourite  with  Freder- 
ick the  Great,  perhaps  because 
he  had  little  knowledge  of 
others,  or  that  it  was  the  only 
one  he  could  buy !  He  is  said 
to  have  purchased  it  in  Paris. 
The  eyes  are  of  crystal,  set  in. 
At  first  sight  the  bust  is 
amusing  by  reason  of  the 
littleness  of  the  head  and 
neck,  and  the  thinness  of  the 
suggested  chest.  The  thing 
is  a  puzzle.  The  cranium 

FIG.  26 

suggests  a  Congo  negro.    But 

the  face  seen  in  front  is  full  size,  and  expresses  the  will-power, 
the  executive  force,  and  the  bland  disposition  of  Caesar ;  and 
each  of  the  features  —  forehead,  eyes,  nose,  mouth,  and  chin 
—  conforms  closely  to  traditional  knowledge  of  him.  All 


126      PORTRAITURES   OF   JULIUS   C^SAR 

in  front  of  the  hair  line  and  the  ears  is  good  modelling  and 
good  portraiture.  In  profile  it  is  equally  good,  but  back 
of  that  line  it  is  ridiculous.  As  it  resembles  the  Caesar 
type  more  than  any  other,  and  was  found  in  Italy  among 
antique  marbles,  paired  with  a  bust  of  Augustus,  and  is  gen- 
erally conceded  to  be  an  antique,  it  must  hold  its  place  in 
the  Caesar  collection.  How  is  this  ridiculous  back  head  on 
so  fine  a  face  to  be  accounted  for?  A  first  conjecture  is 
that  after  the  face  was  worked  out  in  the  stone,  fatal  splits 
or  defects  were  found  in  the  back  part,  or  an  accident  came 
to  it,  and  the  sculptor,  not  wishing  to  lose  his  work,  made 
the  best  reduction  possible  within  the  limits  of  the  stone. 
Another  conjecture  is  that  when  the  bust  was  discovered 
a  part  was  gone  from  the  back  of  the  head,  and  some 
restorer  showed  his  smartness  by  cutting  down  the  head, 
on  the  principle  that  a  diminutive  head  whole  is  better  than 
a  large  one  broken !  It  is  not  reasonable  to  suppose  that 
the  sculptor  who  made  the  face  really  designed  the  present 
form  of  the  head.  The  illustrations  are  from  excellent 
photographs. 

DRESDEN 

No.  41  [B.  53  ?].  Albertinum  Gallery.  A  marble  head 
one-half  life-size,  with  eyes  resembling  those  of  the  Berlin 
marble  bust,  and  otherwise  somewhat  resembling  the  Parma 
bust.  But  on  putting  my  casts  from  the  latter  side  by  side 
with  this,  the  superiority  of  the  Parma  bust  is  at  once 
apparent.  The  latter  looks  like  a  veritable  study  from  life 
by  an  accomplished  sculptor,  while  the  former  seems  a  com- 
posite study.  Dr.  Hermann,  director  of  the  Albertinum 


PLATE  XXV 


BASALT  BUST  OF  JULIUS  C.ESAR,  OF  THE  ROYAL  MUSEUM  OF  BERLIN 


DRESDEN 


127 


Museum,  kindly  wrote  me  the  following   facts   concerning 
this  head :  — 

"  It  is  from  the  collection  of  Herr  von  Rumoko,  undoubt- 
edly some  time  obtained  from  Italy.  The  head  is  of  white 
marble.  The  nose  is  a  restoration,  very  well  done.  The 
pupils  of  the  eyes  are  dis- 
tinctly marked  like  plastic 
work.  This  fact  makes  it 
pretty  certain  (?)  that  it  was 
not  of  Caesar's  time,  but  must 
have  been  much  later.  The 
work,  notwithstanding,  is  so 
good. that  the  time  when  it 
was  made  cannot  be  very 
late ;  about  the  time  of  Had- 
rian probably  —  the  time 
when  outlining  the  iris  of 
the  eyes  first  appears.  De- 
scribed in  the  catalogue  of 
the  Kings'  (Saxony)  collec- 
tions in  4th  ed.  as  No.  119 
from  Prince  Chisi's  collection  (Italy)  in  1728." 

The  lips  are  somewhat  marred.  If  whole,  the  massive- 
ness  of  the  upper  one  might  be  as  noticeable  as  in  the  Parma 
bust.  The  lower  one-third  of  the  nose  is  a  restoration,  and 
shorter,  I  think,  both  at  base  and  point,  than  the  original. 
An  additional  length  of  nose  doubtless  gave  the  bust  more 
force  and  dignity  of  expression.  When  seen  apart  from 
other  and  better  busts  it  makes  a  good  impression  (Fig.  27). 


FIG.  27 


128      PORTRAITURES   OF   JULIUS   CAESAR 

No.  42.  Albertinum  Gallery.  A  thoroughly  antique- 
looking,  life-size,  white  marble  head  and  neck,  which  Dr. 
Hermann  assured  me  is  modern.  The  bust  below  the  neck 
is  of  black  and  white  marble  and  evidently  modern.  I  can- 
not quite  give  up  that  the  head  is  not  antique ;  but  the 
director  is  high  authority,  and  I  bow  to  his  opinion,  and 

to  that  of  Bernoulli.  Both 
the  front  and  side  views  of 
this  head  give  the  impres- 
sion of  an  intellectual  and 
majestic  personality  to  a 
greater  degree  than  the  ad- 
mitted antique  busts.  But 
the  thin  lips  and  hard  mouth- 
lines  rob  the  face  of  all 
geniality.  The  whole  visage 
conveys  the  impression  of 
conscious  intellectual  power 
troubled  by  its  limitations. 

Caesar  never  seems  to  have  been  troubled  in  that  way.  The 
shape  of  the  back  of  the  head  in  this  bust  is  bad,  dropping 
down  where  phrenologists  locate  firmness  and  self-esteem, 
which  Caesar  surely  did  not  lack.  The  angle  of  the  face, 
backward  rather  than  forward  from  a  vertical  line,  is  also 
bad.  I  was  told  at  the  Albertinum  Museum  that  this 
bust  came  from  the  Farnese  collection  of  Rome.  Despite 
its  faults,  it  is  so  full  of  the  expression  of  Caesar's  domi- 
nating intellectuality,  that,  whether  antique,  mediaeval,  or 
modern,  it  cannot  be  ignored  in  a  collection.  The  full 


DRESDEN  —  MUNICH 


129 


face  engraving,  Fig.  28,  is  from  a  photograph  kindly  made 
for  me  by  Mr.  Director  Hermann,  and  the  profile,  Fig.  29, 
is  from  my  own  sketch. 


FIG.  29 


MUNICH 

No.  43.  [B.  51].  Antiquarium.  A  small  bronze  bust 
which  I  failed  to  see,  and  which  Bernoulli  does  not  con- 
sider surely  a  Caesar,  though  he  has  given  it  a  number  in 
his  collection.  I  have  failed  to  get  a  response  from  the 
director  of  the  Antiquarium  to  my  requests  to  be  allowed 
to  obtain  a  cast  or  a  photograph  of  it.  The  German  love 
of  knowledge  and  thoroughness  in  its  pursuit  ought,  it 
seems  to  the  author,  to  beget  a  desire  to  aid  others  in  similar 
studies.  But  some  German  museum  officials  seem  not 
imbued  with  this  sentiment. 


130      PORTRAITURES    OF   JULIUS   CAESAR 


COLOGNE 

No.  44.  [B.  52].  Walraf  Museum.  A  marble  bust,  life- 
size,  of  great  beauty  in  conception  and  modelling.  The 
head  and  neck  have  the  semblance  of  antiquity,  but  the 
toga-bust  is  unqualifiedly  modern.  The  very  intelligent 

director,  Herr  C.  Aldenhover, 
does  not  believe  the  head  and 
neck  to  be  antique,  but  a 
skilfully  tool-marked  imita- 
tion. That  is  to  say,  that 
what  appears  to  be  a  ravage 
of  time  011  the  marble,  or  the 
effect  of  earth  contact,  is  the 
work  of  a  skilful  mechanic, 
employed  by  some  Italian 
manufacturer  of  antique  mar- 
bles !  He  thinks  it  may  not 
be  much  more  than  a  cen- 
tury old.  The  face  is  of  the 
type,  and  probably  a  copy  by  the  eye,  of  the  Florence  Tre- 
soria  bust ;  so  harmoniously  perfect  in  its  expression,  that, 
whether  antique,  mediaeval,  or  modern,  it  must  have  been  the 
work  of  an  accomplished  sculptor.  The  Tresoria  bust,  Flor- 
ence, has  been  known  for  centuries,  and  if  it  be  the  original 
after  which  this  is  designed,  it  speaks  well  for  the  intelligence 
of  the  sculptor  who  chose  it  for  his  model.  I  am  inclined  to 
surmise  that  the  Pisa,  the  Parma,  and  the  Tresoria  marble 
busts,  and  the  little  bronze  of  Madrid  (our  No.  61),  even 


FIG.  30 


PLATE   XXVI 


JULIUS  CJSSAR,  OF  THE  WALKAF  MUSEUM,  COLOGNE 


COLOGNE  131 

if  not  of  Caesar's  time,  are  the  survivals  of  busts  which 
were  their  prototypes,  and  which  were  made  when  he  was 
proconsul  of  Gaul,  with  his  winter  capital  in  Lombardy. 
I  think  they  are  North  Italy's  souvenirs  of  him,  in  the 
years  when  he  conquered  whole  nations  in  single  campaigns 
in  summer,  and  returned  every  autumn  to  hold  court  in 
his  provincial  capitals,  where  artists  as  well  as  literary  men 
were  not  likely  to  be  wanting.  Letters  written  to  and  from 
Caesar's  camps  in  Gaul,  preserved  in  Roman  literature,  show 
that  not  only  were  young  Romans  of  a  military  ambition 
welcome  there,  but  men  of  culture  generally.  Cicero  sent  to 
him  a  young  doctor  of  law  who  arrived  at  the  Roman  camp 
by  the  British  Channel  when  Caesar  was  in  sudden  trouble 
by  reason  of  the  discovery  of  treachery  among  the  Gauls 
on  the  eve  of  his  first  expedition  to  Britain.  The  man  was 
sadly  disappointed  to  have  no  attention  paid  him.  But  on 
Caesar's  return  from  Britain  he  found  time  to  make  a  valued 
companion  of  him.  While  in  Gaul  Caesar  composed  a  trea- 
tise on  grammar.  If  such  social  surroundings  and  study  were 
congenial  to  him  in  those  far-away  camps,  how  reasonable 
to  suppose  that  a  man  of  Caesar's  splendid  tastes  would  have 
attracted  sculptors  and  other  artists  to  his  more  permanent 
capital.  See  Plate  XXVI,  engraved  from  a  photograph, 
and  Fig.  30,  of  the  profile,  engraved  from  my  sketch. 


FRANCE 

PARIS 

f 

After  acquaintance  with  the  busts  and  statues  of  Julius 
Caesar  in  Italian  cities,  those  found  in  the  great  statuary 
collections  of  the  Louvre  Museum  are  disappointing.  Two 
statues  (our  Nos.  46  and  47)  are  to  be  seen  in  the  Hall 
of  the  Roman  Emperors.  Both,  I  think,  were  bad  portrai- 
tures originally.  They  have  been  much  broken  and  restored, 
and  after  the  best  that  could  be  done  was  done  to  make 
them  presentable,  they  are  quite  unsatisfactory.  To  say 
that  their  antiquity  is  uncertain  is  a  charge  that  may  be 
made  against  excellent  works.  But  the  good  portraitures 
are  good  by  reason  of  their  prima  facie  evidence  of  the 
characteristics  of  their  subject.  The  Louvre  statues  and 
busts  lack  that  evidence.  There  is  a  bust  on  a  pedestal 
in  the  middle  of  the  same  hall,  distinctly  labelled  "  Jules 
Cesar,"  "  from  the  Elysee,1'  which  M.  Michon,  the  assist- 
ant conservator  of  this  department,  agreed  with  me  is  not 
at  all  likely  to  be  what  it  was  labelled!  It  is  an  absurd 
survival  of  a  venerable  mistake.  It  will  be  seen  on  page 
138,  not  numbered  as  a  Caasar,  but  pictured,  as  the  im- 
postor is  by  the  police,  to  identify.  It  seems  as  if  Louis 
Napoleon,  while  collecting  materials  for  his  life  of  Julius 
Caesar,  would  have  surrounded  himself  with  a  great  variety 

132 


PLATE  XXVII 


BASALT  BUST  OF  JULIUS  CLESAR,  DESTROYED  AT  ST.  CLOUD  IN 


1870 


PARIS  133 

of  the  best  portraitures  attainable ;  but  it  was  not  so. 
His  collection  must  have  become  public  property  after 
his  flight.  I  can  learn  of  nothing  remaining  of  it  except  the 
black  bronze  in  the  Cabinet  of  Medallions  (our  No.  50),  and 
the  falsely  labelled  "  Jules  Cesar "  above  mentioned.  The 
basalt  bust  at  St.  Cloud,  which  was  destroyed  by  fire  in 
the  siege  of  Paris  in  1870,  was  another.  Fortunately  this 
was  figured  by  Visconti,1  in  copperplate,  full  face  and  pro- 
file, as  shown  with  our  description  of  No.  45. 

The  best  study  of  Julius  Caesar  portraiture  in  the  queen 
of  cities  is  provided  for  by  the  two  copies  of  the  Conserva- 
tori  statue  of  Rome,  —  an  original  cast  in  plaster  in  the 
court  of  the  Academic  des  Beaux  Arts,  and  the  Caen  stone 
copy  from  it  in  the  old  garden  of  the  Tuileries,  on  the 
south  side  of  the  middle  alley,  facing  the  east.  This  is 
referred  to  under  the  description  of  the  original  in  Rome. 
As  the  statue  in  Rome  is  placed  so  that  it  cannot  have 
justice  done  it  by  photograph,  it  is  some  comfort  to  have 
facsimile  copies  in  the  well-lighted  court  of  the  Academie 
des  Beaux  Arts,  and  in  the  old  royal  park  of  Paris  under 
the  open  sky. 

No.  45.  [B.  36].  Basalt  life-size  bust  of  St.  Cloud, 
destroyed  in  1870,  during  the  siege  of  Paris.  This  piece 
has  a  legendary  importance  for  the  value  attached  to  it 
while  it  was  in  existence.  I  made  inquiries  to  learn  if  any 
plaster  copy  of  it  had  ever  been  made,  and  heard  of  none : 
a  degree  of  thoughtlessness  about  the  preservation  of  such 
things  that  has  its  counterpart  in  many  another  collection, 

1  J.  Q.  Visconti,  Iconographie  Romaine,  Paris,  1827. 


134      PORTRAITURES   OF   JULIUS   C^SAR 


both  public  and  private.  Bernoulli  in  1884  declared  that 
it  only  exists  in  Visconti's  engravings.  Of  these  I  procured 
photograph  copies,  here  reproduced.  The  drawings  made  for 
Visconti  I  am  quite  sure  were  not  accurate.  There  is  a 
sharpness  about  the  nose,  mouth,  and  chin,  and  a  loftiness 

of  forehead,  quite  exagger- 
ated. These  peculiarities  are 
not  only  not  in  harmony  with 
the  conceded  best  portraits, 
but  they  are  in  each  case 
abnormal,  and  suggest  inac- 
curacy of  the  artist  who 
made  the  drawings  for  the 
engraver,  rather  than  faults 
of  the  bust.  Believing  the 
latter  to  have  been  better 
than  the  drawings  show  it, 
we  must  draw  upon  imagi- 
nation to  picture  what  it  was. 
It  does  not  seem  likely  that 
so  careful  a  writer  as  Visconti 
would  furnish  us  engravings  of  only  the  great  Naples  bust  and 
this  one,  unless  he  was  convinced  of  the  great  importance  of 
the  latter  as  well  as  the  former.  Bernoulli  thinks  it  strongly 
resembled  the  Pisa  bust.  It  is  possible.  But  he  also  suggests 
a  resemblance  to  the  bronze  head  in  the  Paris  Cabinet  des 
Medailles  (see  No.  7,  on  plate  at  head  of  Chapter  VI),  from 
which  it  must  have  differed  most  radically,  or  the  Visconti 
engravings  were  even  greater  failures  than  I  assume  them  to 


FIG.  31 


PARIS  135 

be.  A  resemblance  to  the  Berlin  bust  seems  to  me  more 
likely.  Indeed,  the  moment  I  first  saw  the  Visconti  engrav- 
ings, it  reminded  me  of  that  head.  All  of  this  type,  which  I 
will  call  the  Pisa  type,  are  so  different  in  expression  from 
the  Naples  head,  and  the  head  of  the  Conservatori  statue  in 
Rome  on  one  side,  and  from  the  Chiarmonti  Gallery  bust, 
No.  107,  and  the  Tresoria  bust  in  Florence  on  the  other, 
that  they  form  three  distinct  types. 

After  the  above  was  written,  I  had  the  good  fortune  to 
be  furnished  with  the  address  of  the  genial  and  venerable 
Professor  Froehner  of  Paris,  who  was  commended  to  me 
by  Mr.  Solomon  Reinach  as  one  of  the  best-informed  archae- 
ologists of  France.  He  was  reader  for  Napoleon  III  during 
the  years  before  the  destruction  of  St.  Cloud,  when  the  latter 
was  composing  his  life  of  Julius  Caesar.  I  found  his  remi- 
niscences very  interesting.  This  bust,  he  told  me,  stood  on 
the  mantel  of  the  room  where  he  worked,  and  was  a  familiar 
figure  to  his  eyes  every  day.  He  is  sure  that  it  was  not  an 
antique,  and  remembers  it  as  a  poor  piece  of  sculpture,  and 
an  uninteresting  piece  of  portraiture.  He  thought  it  was 
not  brought  away  from  St.  Cloud  when  valuable  works  of 
art  were  being  hurriedly  removed  to  Paris  simply  because 
it  was  not  considered  of  value  enough  to  trouble  with. 
M.  Froehner's  opinion  concerning  the  non-antiquity  and  the 
poor  workmanship  of  the  bust  I  respect  absolutely ;  but 
whether  in  those  days  of  his  youth  he  had  a  thoroughly 
well-informed  judgment  concerning  Julius  Caesar's  portrai- 
ture is  a  question.  At  any  rate,  Visconti  and  Froehner,  both 
having  seen  the  bust,  must  be  left  to  face  each  other. 


136      PORTRAITURES    OF   JULIUS   C^SAR 


No.  46.  [B.  29].  The  Louvre;  Hall  of  the  Roman  Em- 
perors. A  toga-clad  statue  of 
heroic  size,  No.  1271,  stand- 
ing in  a  bad  light  between  two 
windows,  near  the  west  end  of 
the  gallery.  This  is  a  much- 
repaired  old  marble  from  the 
Campana  collection  of  Rome, 
and  unsatisfactory  in  the  ex- 
pression of  the  face,  albeit 
bearing  evidence  of  being 
intended  for  Julius  Caesar. 
Bernoulli  remarks  that  the 
head  and  neck  are  joined  to 
the  part  below,  and  "  may 
have  belonged  "  to  the  statue 
originally.  The  nose  and 
point  of  the  chin  are  resto- 
rations ;  also  parts  of  the 
toga,  the  breast-piece,  and 
the  parts  resting  on  it.  The 
wreath  of  bay  leaves  over  the 
forehead,  which  was  the  pro- 
verbial decoration  which  the 
Senate  requested  Caesar  to 
wear  during  the  last  two 
years  of  his  life,  Bernoulli 
assures  us  was  not  a  part  of 
Fio  32  the  original  head,  but  was 


PARIS 


137 


set  on  afterward.  But  aside  from  the  changes  and  restora- 
tions, the  expression  of  the  face  is  weak  and  utterly  un- 
Caesarean,  and  this  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  some  traits  are 
characteristic ;  the  forehead,  for  instance,  though  exaggerated 
in  height.  The  nose,  being  a  restoration,  need  not  be  noticed ; 
but  the  facial  angle,  receding  toward  the  mouth,  makes  the 
latter  positively  a  weak-willed  feature.  In  most  busts  that 
bear  internal  evidence  of  Coasar  characteristics,  the  far- 
advanced  base  of  the  nose  and  the  strength  of  the  upper  lip 
are  singularly  expressive  of  will-power ;  the  Parma  bust  being 
in  this  respect  the  most  striking.  This  statue  lacks  all  that 
the  mouth  should  express  of  will-power  and  suavity. 

No.  47.  [B.  30].  Louvre;  "Csesar  as  Mars,"  No.  1874 
of  the  catalogue.  This,  naked  statue,  of  heroic  size,  has 
recently  been  replaced  near  the 
statue  last  described.  It  is  said 
to  be  of  Greek  marble,  and  is  from 
the  Borghese  collection,  Rome.  It 
seems  conceded  by  iconographists 
to  be  a  genuine  antique  of  Julius 
Caesar.  The  antiquity  of  the  marble 
work  I  will  not  question,  but  that 

• 

the  head  was  ever  made  for  a  por- 
traiture of  Caesar  is  quite  another 
question.  However  well  modelled  FlG-  33 

in  body,  it  is  a  vulgar  conception  even  of  the  Roman  god  of 
war.  It  belongs  rather  to  the  class  of  warrior  heroes  of  single 
combats,  gladiatorial  for  example.  Perhaps  it  was  modelled 


138      PORTRAITURES   OF   JULIUS    C^SAR 

when  the  low  level  of  intelligence  among  Romans  made 
that  sort  of  a  god  marketable.  Or  it  may  never  have 
found  a  purchaser,  and  stood  in  the  sculptor's  work-court 
until  thrown  down  and  broken;  and  then,  covered  with 
ages  of  debris,  to  be  finally  exhumed  in  long-after  ages, 
galvanized  into  value  by  the  Renaissance  rage  for  antique 
sculpture,  and  at  last  associated  for  the  first  time  with  the 
name  of  Julius  Caesar. 

The  head  is  in  two  parts.  It  is  admitted  that  the 
head  and  body  may  have  joined  company  during  the  Re- 
naissance centuries,  when  a  demand  sprung  up  for  Roman 
Emperors.  Our  Caesar's  statue  or  bust  was  necessary  in 
every  collection  of  those  notables  in  later  times.  It  was 
among  great  Italian  families  that  the  demand  for  Greek 
and  Roman  antiques  began.  When  the  fashion  was  taken 
up  by  northern  nations,  the  Italian  marble  workers  and 
art  merchants  furnished  and  sold  a  supply  equal  to  the 
demand.  That  collectors  for  the  northern  museums  al- 
ways made  shrewd  choice  among  the  patched-up  antiques 
offered  to  them  by  the  Italians  may  be  doubted.  That 
the  museum  authorities  who  received  these  "  antique " 
marbles  had  an  exaggerated  estimate  of  their  value  is 
now  well  known.  The  statue  under  consideration  is  a 

• 

case  in  point.  This  work  being  devoted  to  Caesar's  physi- 
ognomy, and  not  to  his  body,  it  is  only  necessary  to 
refer  to  the  make-up,  or  restorations,  of  this  head.  A 
part  of  the  forehead,  the  entire  nose,  a  part  of  the  chin, 
and  a  piece  of  the  neck  are  restorations.  The  forehead 
of  the  toga-statue  last  described  is  high  and  strikingly 


PARIS 


139 


intellectual.  This  statue  has  a  retreating  forehead,  not 
high.  That  statue  suggests  the  philosopher;  this  one,  the 
gladiator.  Only  in  length  of  head,  in  height  and  fulness 
of  the  back  head,  it  is  strong,  and  more  like  Caesar's.  The 
expression  is  resolute  and  aggressive,  again  the  opposite 
of  its  neighbour  in  the  toga.  To  say  that  both  heads 
are  bad  for  Julius  Caesar  is  the  simple  truth.  The  toga- 
statue  could  never  be  thought  a  masterful  executive  char- 
acter; nor  this  one  a  born  statesman  and  orator,  or  a 
gentleman  of  unusual  suavity. 

No.  00.  [B.  31.]  Louvre.  A  marble  head,  heroic  size, 
formerly  occupied  a  place  between  the  two  statues  last  de- 
scribed. It  has  lately  been  put  iipon  the  retired  list  under 
the  roof,  in  the  Magasins  du  Louvre.  It  is  no  worse  than 
some  which  have  not  been  retired,  and  certainly  not  of 
sufficient  value  to  remain  where  it  was.  It  is  mentioned 
simply  because  Bernoulli  gave  it  a  number. 

No.  00.  [B.32.]  Louvre,  Hall 
of  the  Emperors,  marked  "  Julius 
Caesar."  I  publish  this  sketch  in 
order  to  identify  it  for  rejection. 
There  is  but  little  in  the  bust  to 
warrant  its  naming.  I  have  al- 
ready mentioned  that  M.  Michon, 
assistant  conservator  of  antiquities 
in  the  museum,  admitted  to  me 
that  he  did  not  consider  it  a  Caesar. 
It  is  a  forceful  head,  and  might 


FIG.  34 


140      PORTRAITURES   OF   JULIUS   CESAR 


be  a  general's.  It  has  a  good  Caesar  nose  —  that  is  all  it 
has  of  Caesar's  physiognomy.  The  fact  that  it  has  a  band 
around  the  head  indicating  an  "  Imperator  "  is,  I  fancy,  the 
principal  reason  for  imposing  it  on  the  public  as  a  Caesar. 
It  was  found  in  the  Elysee  palace  after  the  fall  of  Napoleon 
III  in  1870.  I  could  not  learn  its  anterior  history.  Un- 
fortunately it  is  being  rapidly  duplicated  for  public  and 
private  collections,  through  the  Louvre  Atelier  du  Moulage. 
It  will  probably  require  half  a  century  to  extirpate  these 
copies  from  college,  museum,  and  private  collections. 

No.  00.  [B.  33].  I  quote  Bernoulli:  "Also  in  the 
Magasins  du  Louvre,  a  Caesar  head,  the  back  part 
wrapped  up,  and  the  nose  knocked  off.  The  relation  to 
Caesar  not  impossible."  It  seems  among  the  things  too 
interesting  to  throw  away  and  too  poor  to  be  catalogued. 

No.  48.  Louvre,  room  XXVI,  south  side,  Gallerie  Mollien. 

A  large  unfinished  head  in  blue-white  marble,  life-size 

or  larger,  not  numbered,  marked 
simply  "  Romain  "  and  "  Au  Louvre 
Magasins  avant  1870."  Restorations, 
lower  two-thirds  of  the  nose,  most  of 
the  chin,  and  base  of  the  neck.  Evi- 
dently  not  antique,  but  apparently 
intended  for  a  Julius  Caesar,  and,  like 
many  others,  interesting  if  not  valu- 
able. The  forehead  is  quite  too  lofty, 
FlG-  35  and  rather  narrow.  Eyes,  nose,  chin, 

mouth,  cheeks,  and  cheek-bones  are  characteristic.    The  upper 


PLATE   XXVIII 


"HERMES"  OR  JULIUS  C^SAR  :  HALL  OF  ANTIQUE  ROMAN  SCULPTURES, 
LOUVRE,  PARIS 


PARIS  141 

one-third  of  the  nose,  uninjured,  indicates  the  Roman  form, 
and  the  restored  part  is  well  done.  The  mouth  is  broad  and 
beautiful,  in  harmony  with  the  best  busts.  The  restored 
chin  is  too  classically  perfect,  but  the  original  fracture  lines 
around  it  do  not  necessitate  its  superfluous  fulness.  I  have 
alluded  to  this  head  as  an  unfinished  work.  All  back  of 
a  vertical  line  through  the  centre  of  the  ears  has  simply 
been  roughed  out.  This  indicates  that  it  was  made  for  a 
niche  so  high  and  deep  that  those  parts  were  not  expected 
to  be  seen,  and  the  loftiness  of  the  forehead  would  thus 
be  foreshortened,  as  seen  from  below,  to  an  extent  that 
might  bring  the  whole  face  into  harmonious  proportion. 
Supposing  it  to  be  a  Renaissance  idealization,  I  give  it 
place  because  it  shows  a  high  intellectual,  instead  of  a 
merely  forceful,  ideal  of  Julius  Caesar :  the  opposite  in  this 
respect  of  the  Ludivisi  bronze  type  (Fig.  8,  p.  96),  and  the 
bust  on  the  floor  of  the  Louvre,  our  Fig.  34. 

No.  49.  The  "Hermes"  of  the  Louvre.  This  very 
beautiful  Greek  statue,  nude,  life-size,  is  on  the  floor  of 
the  Roman  antique  sculpture  room.  It  formerly  was 
named  Germanicus,  but  is  now  labelled  "Hermes,"  and 
also  "(Jules  Cesar?)."  It  is  here  introduced  into  the 
Caesar  portraiture  gallery,  not  because  there  is  certainty 
that  it  was  so  intended,  but  because  there  is  a  theory 
interesting  and  plausible  concerning  its  origin  in  Caesar's 
life-time  and  its  association  with  him.  The  head  and 
features  are  so  like  what  his  may  have  been  in  youth, 
and  the  pose  in  speaking  so  like  a  peculiarity  of  his 


142      PORTRAITURES   OF   JULIUS   C^SAR 


described  by  contemporaries,  that  one  is  led  to  be  open- 
minded  toward  the  theory  that  has  become  associated 
with  it.  The  statue  is  of  Greek  marble,  exquisitely  fin- 
ished. On  a  turtle  at  its  feet  is  graved  in  Greek,  "Clio- 

menes,  son  of  Cliomenes."  Students 
of  Greek  history  have  found  these 
names  to  be  of  two  sculptors,  the 
younger  of  whom  was  of  Caesar's  own 
time.  It  is  well  known  that  while 
Caesar  was  an  ambitious  young  orator 
he  undertook  the  defence  of  some 
prominent  Greeks  involved  in  a  pol- 
itical prosecution  at  Rome  ;  and  was 
successful  in  clearing  them.  Later 
in  life,  when  he  was  master  of  Rome, 
and  victor  over  Pompey  in  Greece, 
the  Grecians  who  had  sided  with 
Pompey  against  him  dreaded  his  anger.  The  interesting 
theory  of  Ravaisson  concerning  this  statue  is  that  the  sculp- 
tor, in  personating  the  god  of  eloquence,  studied  to  make  the 
head  resemble  Caesar's  youthful  features,  and  his  .character- 
istic pose  of  the  right  arm  and  forefinger,  as  a  delicate  tribute 
to  his  early  oratorical  effort  in  behalf  of  the  Greeks.  The 
statue  is  supposed  to  have  been  presented  to  Caesar  by  some 
city  of  Greece  to  placate  his  resentment  against  the  Greeks 
after  the  battle  of  Pharsalia.  It  is  certain  that  he  never 
showed  any  ill-will  toward  them  afterward.  Besides  the 
archaeologist  Ravaisson,  there  are  0.  Rayer,  Bernoulli, 
Solomon  Reinach,  all  iconographists,  and  S.  Baring- 


36 


PARIS  143 

Gould,  author  of  The  Tragedy  of  the  Caesars,  who  lean  to 
the  probability  of  this  theory.  I  first  heard  it  from  the 
lips  of  M.  Reinach,  director  of  the  Musee  St.  Germain, 
whose  interest  inspired  my  own.  Bernoulli  does  not 
include  it  in  his  list  of  numbered  Caesars,  but  confesses 
to  being  impressed  with  its  Caesar-like  expressfon ;  giving 
consideration  to  the  fact  that  it  represents  a  man  thirty 
years  younger  than  other  statues  and  busts.  It  was  not 
until  I  returned  to  it,  after  having  seen  nearly  every 
Caesar  head  in  Europe,  that  the  reasonableness  of  the 
theory  impressed  itself  upon  my  mind  by  a  study  of  the 
face  alone.  In  idealizing  a  Hermes,  the  sculptor  could 
not  with  propriety  introduce  Caesar's  prominent  cheek- 
bones, but  all  else  is  a  semblance  of  what  he  might  have 
been  between  twenty-five  and  thirty  years  of  age.  I 
therefore  include  it  in  my  numbers  as  a  probable  antique 
idealization  of  him  —  a  partial  portraiture.  0.  Rayer,  in 
Art  Antique,  states  that  this  statue  was  in  the  garden 
of  the  fisquiline  at  Rome  in  the  time  of  Pope  Sixtus  the 
Fifth  (1585),  where  it  was  known  as  Germanicus.  In 
1684  it  was  owned  by  Cardinal  Prince  Savelli.  In  1685 
Louis  XIV  authorized  Louvois,  his  Minister  of  State,  to 
buy  it;  and  after  some  years  of  negotiation  it  was  secured 
for  the  French  royal  collection. 

No.  50.  [B.  34].  Cabinet  des  Medailles,  Bibliotheque 
Nationale,  No.  829,  of  the  catalogue  of  Babelon  and  Blan- 
chette.  A  life-size  head  of  almost  black  bronze,  perhaps 
slightly  below  life-size.  A  very  interesting  and  a  very  re- 


144      PORTRAITURES    OF   JULIUS   C^SAR 


markable  head.  Some  iconographic  writers  cast  doubts  on 
its  antiquity.  I  am  impressed  with  its  nearness  to  Caesar's 
time,  by  the  similarity  of  its  features  and  shape  of  head  to 
a  group  of  the  best  types  known,  combined  with  a  singular 

expression  of  fierce  intellectual 
tension  that  at  once  makes  one 
think :  how  like  that  Caesar 
must  have  looked  at  the  battle 
with  the  Nervii,  when  his  small 
army  was  unexpectedly  at- 
tacked on  all  sides  and  almost 
overwhelmed  by  the  bold  Bel- 
gians, and  where,  bareheaded 
and  without  armour,  he  rushed 
among  his  men  to  inspire  and 
direct  them.  It  is  a  fierce  face 
—  anxious,  intellectual,  reso- 
lute. It  seems  to  me  that  it 
ought  not  to  be  mistaken  for 
FIG.  37  any  other  than  Julius  Caesar. 

M.  Babelon,  conservator  of  the  Cabinet  of  Medallions, 
kindly  had  the  bust  taken  down  for  me  from  a  high 
shelf  to  which  it  had  been  retired.  I  found  it  labelled 
"  Brutus  or  Caesar."  A  singular  mistake,  as  it  does  not  at 
all  resemble  Brutus's  face.  One  feels  that  it  is  the  work  of 
some  sculptor  of  that  far  time  when  Caesar's  features  were 
preserved  in  every  variety  of  similitude  among  the  Romans ; 
when  his  career  as  a  warrior  in  Gaul  was  the  most  popular 
conception  of  him.  Whether  this  particular  metal  is  of  his 


PLATE  XXIX 


BRONZE  HEAD  OF  JULIUS  C^SAR  :    Cabinet  des  M^dailles,  Bibliotheque 
Rationale,  PARIS 


PARIS  145 

time  or  not,  the  whole  spirit  of  it  is  instinct  with  fighting 
men's  conceptions  of  a  fighting  leader. 

The  season  I  first  saw  this  bronze  I  could  obtain  no  per- 
mission from  the  director  to  have  a  cast  made  from  it,  and 
regretted  that  I  should  have  only  a  copy  of  my  own  profile 
sketch,  shown  in  the  vignette,  Fig.  37.  Either  photographs 
or  sketches  from  very  dark  bronzes  are  unsatisfactory.  A 
photograph  from  a  plaster  cast  only  will  give  the  true 
expression  of  the  bust. 

Though  I  am  impressed  with  the  life-likeness  of  this  bust 
as  a  dramatic  expression  of  one  phase  of  Caesar's  life,  it 
would  not  be  fair  to  the  original  to  have  it  in  any  public 
place,  alone,  as  a  characteristic  portraiture  of  him;  but  it 
may  well  form  one  of  a  collection. 

Bernoulli  alludes  to  it  as  a  possible  copy  of  the  destroyed 
St.  Cloud  basalt  bust  (No.  45),  or  of  the  Pisa  bust.  It  seems 
to  me  to  differ  radically  from  both :  to  be  absolutely  an 
original  and  unique  work.  He  also  remarks, "  It  is  not  to 
be  comprehended  how  it  has  come  out  in  modern  times."  I 
do  not  believe  it  has  come  out  in  modern  times.  M.  Babelon 
is  ignorant  of  its  origin  further  than  that  it  was  a  part  of 
the  French  royal  collection  at  the  close  of  the  seventeenth 
century. 

In  a  visit  to  Paris  after  the  above  was  written  I  suc- 
ceeded, by  appeal  to  M.  Roujon,  Minister  of  Public  Instruc- 
tion in  France,  to  have  a  request  issued  to  M.  Babelon  that  I 
might  have  a  plaster  copy  of  this  bronze ;  and  M.  Eugene 
Arrondelle,  the  venerable  chief  moulder  of  the  Louvre 
Museum,  was  authorized  to  make  it.  Since  returning  to  the 


146      PORTRAITURES    OF   JULIUS    C^SAR 

United  States  I  have  received  from  the  latter  duplicate 
plaster  copies  of  this  bust.  I  am  surprised  to  find  the 
change  of  expression  that  appears  from  the  black  bronze  to 
the  white  plaster.  It  in  no  way  changes  my  opinion  of  its 
high  value,  but  it  does  modify  slightly  the  impression  of  a 
"  fierce  face,"  and  shows  that  that  exaggerated  expression 
was  partly  due  to  the  blackness  of  the  surface,  and  not 
all  inherent  in  the  modeller's  work.  On  my  invitation 
M.  Solomon  Reinach  went  to  see  the  casts  in  white,  and  said 
to  me  that  he  is  certain  that  it  was  made  for  Julius  Caesar, 
but  not  that  it  is  an  antique  bronze.  Antique  or  not,  as  a 
casting,  it  bears  on  its  face  the  evidence  of  a  forceful  por- 
traiture of  Caesar ;  and  whether  a  copy  of  an  antique,  or  an 
idealized  composition  from  many  antiques,  or  itself  of  Caesar's 
far-away  time,  we  shall  probably  forever  be  in  the  dark. 
The  first  plate  opposite  this  number  is  a  front  view  from 
a  photograph  of  the  plaster  cast,  the  last  one  is  a  profile 
of  the  same,  and  the  vignette,  Fig.  37,  is  from  my  original 
profile  sketch. 

No.  51.  [B.  35].  Bronze  statuette  in  the  Luzarche  col- 
lection (Paris  ? ).  An  engraving  of  this  was  reproduced  in 
1866  in  the  Gazette  des  Beaux-Arts,  No.  21,  p.  536,  from 
a  work  entitled  Chefs-dceuvres  des  Arts  Industries,  by 
Philippe  Burty,  issued  that  year.  Neither  in  Burty's  work 
or  the  Gazette  is  there  any  statement  of  the  history  of  the 
piece,  or  the  locality  of  the  "  Luzarche  collection."  The 
engraving  shows  an  armoured  figure  in  dramatic  pose.  It 
suggests  a  study  from  the  Alenson  statuette.  Burty  describes 


PLATE  XXX 


PROFILE  OF  BRONZE  HEAD  OF  JULIUS  C^SAR  :  Cabinet  des  Medailles, 
Bibliotheque  Nationale,  PARIS 


PARIS 


147 


it  as  a  beautiful  piece  of  bronze  work,  saying  nothing  of  its 
origin,  but  leaves  the  impression  on  the  mind  that  it  is  a 
modern  work.  I  did  not  find  the  "  Luzarche  collection." 

No.  52.  [B.  37].  A  copy  of  a  bronze  miniature  head  only 
three  inches  high,  in  a  cabinet  of  room  XVII  of  the  Musee 
St.  Germain,  near  Paris,  numbered 
11594.  Mr.  Solomon  Reinach  first 
called  my  attention  to  it.  He  con- 
siders the  original  bronze,  retained 
in  the  Museum  of  Douai  (No.  588), 
a  veritable  antique  of  Julius  Caesar. 
It  was  found  at  Bavay  in  the  north 
of  France,  in  excavations  of  an  old 
cemetery.  It  was  first  kept  in  the 
collection  of  the  Abbe  Carlier,  cu- 
rate of  that  town,  and  bought  for  the 
Museum  Douai  about  1840.  It  seems  to  me  a  rude  effort  to 
personate  him.  Insignificant  as  it  is  in  size,  and  rude  as  a 
work  of  art,  I  esteem  it  of  some  value  as  an  effort  in  portrai- 
ture. The  piece  is  in  good  preservation.  The  nose  only  has 
been  marred  by  chipping  and  wear  of  the  lower  end.  The 
shape  of  the  head  and  features  are  Caesar's,  as  we  learn  to 
recognize  them.  It  resembles  the  Besan^on  head,  but  not 
much.  In  mouth  it  more  resembles  the  Parma  bust.  The 
forehead  is  lofty,  with  wrinkles  above  the  mid-line  ;  the  eyes 
are  large,  under  characteristic  brows,  but  on  a  back  angle  that 
reminds  one  of  crude  Egyptian  statuary,  and  shows  it  not  to 
be  the  work  of  an  educated  sculptor.  The  nose  is  rather 


FIG.  38 


148      PORTRAITURES   OF   JULIUS   CESAR 

straight  than  aquiline,  and  its  worn  and  shortened  end  must 
be  corrected  by  the  imagination.  The  mouth  is  strong  and 
the  lower  lip  fuller  than  any  I  remember,  yet  not  out  of  pro- 
portion. The  chin  averages  with  other  busts.  The  cheek- 
bones are  less  prominent  than  some,  but  the  wedgelike  form 
of  jaws,  the  thin  cheeks,  and  the  depressions  in  them  are 
unmistakable.  The  head  is  erect,  in  an  attitude  of  alert 
repose.  The  half-tone  inset  is  from  a  photograph  of  a  cast 
from  the  St.  Germain  copy.  The  vignette  (Fig.  38)  is  a  copy 
of  my  sketch  of  the  same,  and  renders  the  expression  of  the 
piece  more  faithfully  than  the  photograph. 

I  am  indebted  to  Monsieur  E. 
Gottelin,  conservator  of  the  Douai 
Museum,  for  the  early  history  of 
this  discovery.  It  is  a  little  curi- 
ous that  three  strikingly  charac- 
teristic portraits  of  Julius  Caesar 
have  been  exhumed  in  the  nine- 
teenth century.  I  allude  to  the 
half  life-size  marble  head  of 
Parma,  the  Besan^on  bronze,  and 
this  apparently  insignificant  piece. 
I  might  add  the  bronze  No.  3014 
FlG>  39  of  the  Archaeological  Library  of 

Madrid  (our  No.  61),  which,  though  it  comes  from  the  palace 
of  the  Duke  of  Salamanca  instead  of  ancient  ground,  is  of 
the  same  family  likeness,  and  is  introduced  to  the  public  for 
the  first  time  in  this  monograph. 


PARIS  149 

No.  53.  Life-size  bronze  or  zinc-bronze  statue,  to  which 
my  attention  was  called  by  Mr.  Paul  Desprez  of  Paris.  It 
is  in  the  open  court  of  No.  55  Rue  Monceau,  the  property 
of  Madame  the  Countess  de  Croquit  de  Montfort.  The 
proprietor  being  absent  from  the  city,  I  obtained  no  infor- 
mation concerning  it.  Its  rather  noble  and  militant  expres- 
sion reminded  me  of  the  little  Besanc,on  statuette,  No.  56. 
It  is  believed  to  be  quite  a  modern  piece. 

No.  54.  A  colossal  bust,  in  the  Exposition  of  1900, 
under  the  great  arch  entrance  of  the  east  wing  of  the 
building  blazoned  "  Arts  —  Paix,"  the  entrance  on  the  left 
nearest  the  Pont  Alexandre.  Here  I  found  pedestalled  in 
stately  position  a  heroic-size  Carrara  marble  bust  of  Julius 
Caesar  on  the  right  side,  and  a  companion  piece  of  Pompey 
on  the  left  side.  See  engraving  facing  Chapter  V.  I  learned 
from  their  owner  that  they  were  executed  in  the  time  of 
Louis  XIV.  I  found  no  sculptor's  name  upon  them.  The 
owner  refused  permission  to  photograph  this  Caesar ;  but  the 
sketch  I  made  of  it,  reproduced  by  the  engraving,  gives  a  fair 
idea  of  its  character.  It  is  a  composition  of  great  power,  and 
may  be  as  nearly  a  portrait  of  Caesar  as  some  of  the  antiques 
of  the  great  museums.  That  a  sculptor  had  a  commis- 
sion to  execute  works  of  such  size  in  Carrara  marble  in 
Louis  XIV's  reign,  argues  employment  by  the  King  or 
some  great  personage  of  the  court.  If  so  employed,  he 
would  naturally  have  been  furnished  with  letters  giving 
him  access  to  all  Italian  antiques  of  value  from  which 
to  make  his  studies.  The  work  would  probably  have  been 


150      PORTRAITURES   OF   JULIUS   CAESAR 

done  in  Pisa  or  Rome.  This  bust  shows,  not  only  study 
of  the  Italian  antiques,  but  of  the  life  and  character  of 
Caesar.  Naturally,  as  the  work  of  that  military  epoch, 
it  emphasizes  the  intellectual  will-power  and  domineering 
spirit  of  the  man,  rather  than  those  grand  qualities  of 
patience  and  forebearance  with  men,  of  practical  statesman- 
ship and  gentle  manners,  which  modern  historians  have 
made  more  prominent.  If  one  were  to  idealize  Julius 
Caesar,  say  at  the  age  of  forty-five,  in  default  of  marble  or 
bronze  souvenirs  of  him,  it  would  be  a  difficult  task  for  any 
sculptor  to  surpass  this  in  the  expression  of  executive  force. 

LYONS 

No.  00.  [B.  38].  Lyons,  Musee  de  Palais  des  Arts. 
Bernoulli  describes,  as  at  this  museum,  "  A  little  marble  with 
wreath  on  head,  forehead  bald,  down-sloping  eyebrows,  and 
large  prominent  eyeballs."  M.  Dissard,  director  of  the 
above  museum,  assured  me,  in  reply  to  my  inquiry  for  the 
above-described  bust,  that  "there  is  no  marble  head  of 
Julius  Caesar  in  this  museum."  But  he  brought  out  for 
my  inspection  a  one-third  life-size  marble  head  of  execrable 
workmanship,  out  of  which  imagination  might  conjure  an 
apprentice's  attempt  to  make  a  Julius  Caesar.  Evidently 
Bernoulli  was  misled  concerning  it,  or  something  else. 

No.  55.  Lyons,  same  museum.  In  a  bronze  cabinet  I 
found  an  old  bronze  head,  one-third  life-size,  that  looks  like 
an  iron  casting,  and  seems  to  be  a  rude  portraiture  of  Julius 
Caesar.  It  is  so  catalogued  from  the  ancient  Musee  of 


LYONS  —  AVIGNO  N  —  BESAN^ON          151 

Lyons.  The  bronze  or  iron  head  and  neck  are  set  in  plas- 
ter, into  a  very  carefully  cut  but  awkwardly  designed  rose- 
antique  marble  bust,  dressed  in  imperial  Roman  robe.  The 
metal  part  seems  to  be  considered  a  very  old  piece  ;  the 
marble  part  is  quite  modern. 

AVIGNON 

No.  00.  [B.  40].  Avignon,  "  Musee  Calvet,  No.  272,  some- 
what after  the  Naples  head."  The  words  quoted  are  from 
Bernoulli.  I  visited  Avignon  to  see  this  bust,  but  here,  as 
in  Lyons,  the  conservator  of  the  museum  informed  me  that 
it  contained  no  Julius  Caesar,  and  that  Bernoulli  had  been 
misinformed.  I  searched  for  something  that  might  have 
been  mistaken  for  a  Caesar,  and  was  shown  an  undersized 
marble  head,  bald  on  top,  fringed  around  with  thick  hair, 
which  resembles  no  known  personage.  The  guardian  of  the 
museum  assured  me  that  this  was  the  nearest  approach  to  a 
Caesar  that  the  museum  possessed. 


No.  56.  [B.  39].  Besangon  Museum.  Here  is  a  bronze 
statuette,  armour-clad,  without  arms  or  legs,  but  a  com- 
plete torso  and  head  ten  inches  in  height.  It  is  clearly 
a  personation  of  Julius  Caesar,  and  a  spirited  one.  I  first 
saw  a  copy  of  it,  in  bronze,  in  a  shop  in  Rome,  and  was 
much  struck  with  its  fine  pose  and  expressive  face.  It 
was  not  until  I  had  seen  a  plaster  cast  of  the  little  piece, 
made  directly  from  the  Besangon  original,  that  I  was 


152      PORTRAITURES    OF   JULIUS    CESAR 


FIG.  40 


made  aware  of  the  identity 
of  the  two.  I  have  since 
obtained  a  plaster  cast  of  it 
from  which  this  engraving 
(Fig.  40)  is  taken.  The  story 
concerning  it  is  that  it  came 
out  of  a  river,  but  whether  a 
stream  near  Besan^on,  or  the 
Tiber,  I  could  not  learn.  It 
was  acquired  by  a  Roman 
collector  of  antiquities,  Signor 
Rohrich,  and  sold  back  to 
Besan^on,  from  whence  it  is 
said  to  have  come,  and  is 
now  in  its  museum.  Whether 
antique,  mediaeval,  or  modern, 
is  an  open  question. 


PLATE  XXXI 


PORPHYRY  BUST  FROM  HERCULANEUM:   ROYAL  PALACE,  MADRID 


SPAIN 

Spain,  being  one  of  the  oldest  of  the  Roman  provinces, 
and  dotted  with  garrisoned  Roman  cities  in  the  time  of 
Julius  Caesar,  the  province  where  he  first  was  governor,  and 
the  earliest  theatre  of  his  executive  and  administrative  abil- 
ity, it  would  be  natural  to  find  there  some  remnants  of 
marble  or  bronze  portraitures  of  him.  But  two  thousand 
years  of  decay  and  destruction,  and  some  centuries  of  occu- 
pation by  Moslem  Moors,  have  been  too  much  for  them.  At 
Madrid  two  life-size  marble  busts  and  two  miniature  bronze 
busts  were  found  in  public  galleries.  A  red  porphyry  life- 
size,  from  Herculaneum,  is  in  the  Royal  Palace.  Only  the 
latter  is  believed  to  be  antique.  It  is  shown  by  the  plate 
opposite. 

At  Sevilla  two  life-size  marble  busts,  supposed  to  be  of 
Caesar,  and  the  damaged  remains  of  a  colossal  statue  known 
to  have  been,  were  found ;  all  brought  from  the  old  Roman 
capital,  Italica  (old  Sevilla),  several  centuries  ago,  and 
believed  to  be  works  of  Augustus's  time,  or  not  long  after. 

MADRID 

No.  57.  The  porphyry,  life-size  bust  alluded  to  as  in 
the  Royal  Palace  of  Madrid.  It  is  a  beautiful  and  well- 
modelled  head,  and  suggests  Augustus  as  well  as  Julius. 
I  incline  to  think  it  intended  for  Julius.  The  fact  that 

153 


154      PORTRAITURES    OF   JULIUS    C^SAR 

Augustus  was  the  idolized  head  of  the  Roman  Empire,  and 
profusely  portrayed  during  his  great  reign,  lent  a  form  of 
face  to  the  sculptors  that  has  made  some  uncertainty  which 
of  certain  works  were  intended  for  one  or  the  other.  The 
head  of  Augustus  was  idealized,  both  in  his  own  time  and 
during  the  Renaissance,  and  these  idealized  types  have  be- 
come so  popularly  known,  that  it  long  ago  became  a  habit 
of  collectors,  whenever  a  particularly  handsome  Caesar  face 
was  found,  to  give  it  the  benefit  of  a  doubt  (as  between 
Julius  and  Augustus),  and  to  catalogue  it  as  an  Augustus. 
This  head  has  mouth,  nose,  cheeks,  and  expression  leaning  to 
the  Julius  side.  From  what  we  learn  from  contemporary 
descriptions  of  the  two  men,  it  is  believed  that  Julius  in  his 
youth  was  much  the  handsomer  man  of  the  two.  But  in 
his  youth  he  was  not  Emperor,  or  Imperator ;  only  a  thor- 
oughly hated  young  patrician,  under  the  ban  of  his  peers 
for  being  a  leader  of  the  democracy.  No  busts  of  him  in 
youth  are  heard  of.  We  imagine  his  face  then  was  the  more 
expressive  and  winsome  of  the  two.  The  large,  strong, 
pleasant  mouth  was  rather  in  contrast  than  resembling  the 
smaller  and  tighter  mouth  of  Augustus.  This  feature,  and 
the  more  prominent  cheek-bones  of  Julius's  face,  are  the  two 
features  that  most  distinguish  the  one  from  the  other. 

No.  58.  [B.  41?].  Madrid,  Prado  Museum,  ground  floor. 
Here  we  found  (1899)  a  slightly  more  than  life-size  marble 
bust,  numbered  258  in  red  on  base  of  bust,  and  marked 
Julius  Caesar  in  the  catalogue.  Its  appearance  has  little 
to  make  assurance  that  it  may  not  be  antique,  or  that  it 


MADRID 


155 


may  not  be  of  the  Renaissance  era,  and  from  Italy.  The 
marble  has  been  some  broken  and  looks  old.  It  is  a  very 
intellectual  head,  Caesarean  in  its  profile,  though  in  form  of 
cranium  it  might  be  taken  for  a  Cicero.  The  nose,  mouth, 
chin,  and  cheeks  are  also  of  our  hero's  type ;  the  chin  some- 
what longer  and  heavier  than  on  most  busts,  but  not  more 
so  than  on  No.  107,  of  the  Vatican.  The  expression  of  the 
face  is  judicial  rather  than 
executive.  I  saw  a  cast  of 
this  marble  in  a  plaster-work- 
er's collection  in  Madrid  be- 
fore seeing  the  original  in  the 
Prado  Museum.  It  impressed 
me  at  first  glance  as  a  Julius 
Caesar ;  a  more  than  usually 
noble  conception  of  him,  but 
as  different  from  the  average 
of  Italian  busts  as  is  the  bust 
of  the  British  Museum.  If 
it  is  Renaissance  work,  its 
artist  had  a  more  intelligent 
ideal  of  Caesar  than  most  of 
the  Italians  who  manufactured  antiques  for  the  northern 
market  in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries.  This 
bust,  as  well  as  the  following,  came  "from  the  king's  col- 
lections." More  than  this  of  its  history  the  assistant 
director  could  not  give  me.  The  fact  that  it  is  the  jurist 
Caesar,  rather  than  the  military  or  "  imperator "  sort,  sug- 
gests the  reflection  that  it  may  be  a  study  from  some 


FIG.  41 


156      PORTRAITURES   OF   JULIUS   C^SAR 

antique  not  now  known.     My  sketch  (Fig.  41)  is  a   faith- 
ful one  of  the  profile. 

No.  59.  [B.  42  ?].  Also  in  the  Prado  Museum,  at  the 
side  of  the  preceding,  is  another  life-size  marble  bust  (Fig. 
42)  of  a  different  type,  marked  "No.  23.  Julius  Caesar." 
Below  the  forehead  it  is  a  superior  piece  of  modelling,  but 
the  cranium  is  insignificant  relatively  to  the  size  of  the 

face.  It  has  probably  been 
observed  by  the  reader  that 
the  busts  of  the  Parma  and 
Florence  Tresoria  type  show 
the  contrary  proportion,  the 
heads  being  long  and  large,  so 
that  the  face  appears  relatively 
small.  The  sculptor  of  this 
bust  evidently  had  small  sense 
of  the  power  expressed  by  size 
and  shape  of  head,  and  in 
this  marble  has  succeeded  in 
expressing  an  executive  spirit 
devoid  of  great  intellectual 
capacity,  —  the  face  of  Caesar  without  his  brain.  It  seems 
to  me  to  resemble  the  Florence  bronze  No.  3577  of  the 
Uffizi  collection  (our  No.  25),  but  with  belittled  proportion 
of  cranium. 

No.  60.  Madrid.  In  the  Bibliotheka  National,  depart- 
ment Archiologico,  room  IV,  main  floor,  in  a  glass  case  with 
other  small  bronzes,  were  found  two  diminutive  bronze 


FIG.  42 


MADRID 


157 


busts,  both,  supposed  to  be  Julius  Caesar.  The  assistant 
director  informed  me  that  these  little  bronzes  were  obtained 
at  the  sale  of  the  art  works  of  the  Marquis  of  Salamanca, 
about  1884.  This  one  (Fig.  43)  bears  some  resemblance  to 
the  head  on  No.  2038  of  our  plate  of  Naples  coins.  It  is 
numbered  2971  on  label 
attached  with  string,  and 
123  painted  on  base,  and 
is  also  marked  Julius  Caesar. 
It  is  of  the  type  of  the 
marble  bust  of  the  Prado 
(our  Fig.  41)  before  de- 
scribed. The  moment  the 
eye  falls  upon  it  there  is 
something  that  makes  one 
feel  it  to  be  intended  for 
Julius  Caesar;  but  when  ex- 
amined in  connection  with 
its  companion  statuette  next 
described,  which  is  so  far 
superior  in  the  expression  of 
Caesar  militant,  doubt  is  felt  whether  this  can  really  be 
intended  for  the  same  man.  The  lofty  forehead  is  like 
Cicero's.  The  face  leans  to  Caesar's  side,  the  cranium  to 
Cicero's.  The  mouth  of  the  great  orator  had  a  mean,  un- 
certain expression,  while  Caesar's  expresses  resolute  power 
and  suavity  combined  —  an  eloquent  mouth  —  long,  full,  and 
of  no  uncertain  will.  If  intended  for  Caesar,  it  is  not  a 
success ;  still  less  for  Cicero ;  but  it  resembles  both  of  them. 


FIG.  43 


158      PORTRAITURES   OF   JULIUS   C^SAR 

No.  61.  Same  museum.  The  bronze  companion  piece 
above  referred  to,  numbered  3014  on  label  attached  with 
string,  and  named  in  catalogue  as  Germanicus !  Probably 
described  so  on  the  strength  of  G.  C.  marked  on  the  bust, 
which  was  assumed  to  stand  for  Germanicus  Consul.  As 
the  letters  G.  C.  are  the  initials  of  Guilio  Caesare  in  Italian, 

and  as  Germanicus  never  was 
Consul,  the  absurdity  of  the 
naming  is  patent. 

This  little  statuette  is  the 
gem  of  all  miniature  portrai- 
tures of  Caesar.  I  am  disposed 
to  believe  it  one  of  the  best 
portraits  known.  It  is  a 
Julius  militant,  aggressive, 
intellectual,  sure  of  his  own 
power,  and  alert  to  meet  and 
to  overcome  all  opposition. 
It  is  in  one  respect  more  sat- 
isfactory than  the  Parma  bust, 
which  is  one  of  brooding  re- 

FIG    44 

flection  ;  while  this  one  gives 

the  pose  and  expression  of  readiness  for  action,  whether  in  the 
field  or  the  forum.  It  is  of  the  same  type  as  the  Florence 
Tresoria  and  the  Parma  busts,  with  the  difference  that  in  this 
one  the  hour  of  reflection  is  passed,  and  the  hour  of  action 
come.  No.  60  and  this  stood  back  to  back  on  opposite  sides 
of  the  glass  case  of  bronzes  in  which  they  were  found.  The 
former  was  first  seen,  and  impressed  me  at  once  as  a  probable 


PLATE  XXXII 


COLUMNS  OF  THE  Alamada  de  Hercules,  SEVILLA,  SPAIN 


SEVILLA  159 

Julius  Caesar,  the  label  upon  it  confirming  the  surmise.  But 
when  this  one  came  into  view  it  gave  the  delight  of  finding 
an  undoubted  gem  of  the  first  water.  The  vividness  with 
which  the  executive  side  of  Csesar's  character  is  brought 
out  is  such  a  contrast  with  the  former,  that  one  does  not 
feel  like  giving  the  other  the  credit  of  being  of  the  same 
man.  These  bronzes  are  evidently  by  the  same  artist; 
but  from  what  originals  ?  And  of  what  era  ? 

SEVILLA 

In  this  old  Spanish  city,  in  the  "Alemada  de  Hercules," 
are  two  colossal  Roman  columns,  which  are  utilized  to  bear 
above  their  capitals,  massive  pedestals,  crowned  with 
statues.  One  is  of  Hercules,  and  the  other  Julius  Csesar. 
The  plate  opposite  is  from  a  photograph  taken  for  the  author. 
Columns  and  statues  are  both  surely  antique.  They  are 
known  to  have  been  brought  376  years  ago  from  the  old 
Roman  theatre  of  Italica  (old  Sevilla),  five  miles  from  the 
present  city.  Italica  was  an  important  city  about  170 
years  before  Christ,  when  captured  by  Scipio  Africanus. 
It  was  then  made  a  Roman  stronghold  and  provincial 
capital.  Three  Roman  Emperors,  Hadrian,  Trajan,  and 
Theodosius,  were  born  there.  It  was  therefore  an  imperial 
court  city.  Its  palaces,  theatres,  temples,  baths,  were  on 
a  scale  of  magnificence  known  to  those  familiar  with  the 
wealth  and  luxuriousness  of  the  Empire.  From  its  ruins, 
for  more  than  a  thousand  years,  architectural  marbles  and 
statues  were  brought  by  the  authorities  of  Church  and 


160      PORTRAITURES    OF   JULIUS    C^SAR 

State  to  decorate  the  new  Sevilla.  The  builders  of  its 
present  cathedrals,  palaces,  and  palatial  mansions  used  the 
old  city  for  their  fine  art  quarry.  The  exquisite  columns 
in  the  windows  of  the  Giralda  tower,  built  700  years  ago, 
had  previously  graced  some  Roman  palace  or  villa  in 
Italica.  As  late  as  1574  a  public-spirited  citizen  of  Sevilla 
gave  the  Alemada  to  the  city,  and  at  his-  own  expense 
brought  from  Italica  the  immense  granite  columns  and 
colossal  marble  statues  that  crown  them.  All  are  said  to 
have  come  from  the  ruins  of  the  great  amphitheatre, 
in  part  cut  out  of  the  solid  rock,  the  remains  of  which  are 
still  stupendous.  The  statues  are  perched  so  loftily  that 
one  can  make  no  study  of  what  they  may  have  been. 

No.  62.  The  statue  on  the  top  of  the  column  on  the  right 
is  of  Julius  Caesar.  My  impression  is  that,  as  a  work  of 
art,  it  was  not  of  a  high  order.  How  good  as  a  por- 
traiture the  statue  may  have  been  nineteen  hundred 
years  ago,  it  is  now  impossible  to  know.  It  may  have 
been  in  good  preservation  when  taken  from  its  niche  in 
the  amphitheatre  in  1574.  But  the  elements  (and  the  birds) 
have  had  their  work  upon  it  for  nearly  four  hundred  years. 
A  part  of  the  nose  and  mouth,  and  all  of  the  chin,  have 
crumbled  off.  The  head  seems  to  have  been  of  enormous 
size,  the  body  too  stalwart,  and  awkwardly  posed.  It  is 
impossible  to  feel  sure  of  anything  concerning  the  original 
features  and  expression  of  the  face.  The  nose  is  the  best 
preserved  part,  and  is  slightly  aquiline.  The  fact  that  this 
statue  was  probably  modelled  within  a  century  after  Julius's 


SEVILLA 


161 


death  makes  it  possible  that  it  may  have  been  used,  in 
the  Middle  Ages  and  the  Renaissance  period,  as  the  pro- 
totype of  some  of  the  busts  and  statues  in  modern  museums. 
If  it  were  itself  a  free  copy  of  some  earlier  statue,  I  would 
incline  to  the  belief  that  it  was  the  one  which  bore  the 
colossal  head  of  Naples.  It  is  a  sad  commentary  on  the 
ignorance  of  the  public-spirited  donor  of  the  park,  and  its 
columns  and  statues,  that  he  did  not  know  better  than  to 
expose  marbles,  then  so  venerable,  to  certain  destruction 
by  the  elements. 

This  badly  elevated  and  mutilated,  but  certainly  antique 
statue  of  Caesar  is  numbered  that  it  may  be  of  record, 
though  it  can  have  little  value  in  determining  his  physi- 
ognomy. 

No.  63.  Sevilla.  Casa  de  Pilatos.  This  is  a  well- 
known  old  mansion,  in  decayed  magnificence,  maintained 
as  a  visiting  place  for  the  beauty  of  the 
mediaeval  architecture  of  its  open  courts. 
It  is  now  the  property  of  the  Duke  of 
Medinacelli  of  Madrid.  I  was  informed 
by  the  assistant  director  of  the  Archaeo- 
logical Museum.,  that  antique  busts  from 
Italica  were  preserved  there,  two  of 
which,  life-size,  were  possibly  Julius 
Caesars.  I  found  them  in  a  damp 
garden-court,  under  the  arcade  enclosing 
it,  perched  on  columns,  and  quite  shaded 
by  the  floor  above  them.  The  light  upon  them  was  so  bad 


FIG.  45 


162      PORTRAITURES   OF   JULIUS   C^SAR 

that  it  was  difficult  to  form  an  opinion  of  their  value.  One 
of  them  was  sufficiently  interesting  to  induce  me  to  run  the 
risk  of  a  chill  in  trying  to  sketch  it,  especially  as  the  antiquity 
of  the  marbles  seems  beyond  question,  and  the  identity  has 
been  recognized  by  others.  The  vignette,  Fig.  45,  on  the 
preceding  page,  is  the  result  —  a  meagre  sketch,  but  cor- 
rect in  the  outlines,  and  sufficient  to  attract  attention  of 
expert  iconographists  to  it  hereafter.  I  think  it  possible 
that  it  may  have  high  value.  The  other  one  also  may  be 
worth  a  better  examination  than  I  was  able  to  make  of  it. 
As  the  two  little  bronzes  of  the  archaeological  depart- 
ment of  the  Bibliotheka  National  of  Madrid,  as  well  as 
the  great  statue  and  the  busts  found  in  Sevilla,  have  been 
heretofore  unheard  of  or  unmentioned  by  northern  inves- 
tigators, I  am  hopeful  that  other  old  family  collections  in 
Spain  will  yet  reveal  other  Julius  Caesars. 


ENGLAND   AND   SCOTLAND 

Probably  no  country  other  than  Italy  has  so  many 
busts  of  Julius  Caesar  (purchased  for  antiques)  as  Great 
Britain.  But  it  is  not  certain,  nor  even  highly  probable, 
that  there  is  one  among  them  all  dating  back  to  the 
days  of  the  Caesars.  English  purchasers  of  antiques  were 
the  richest  and  most  numerous  of  any  in  Italy  through 
the  seventeenth,  eighteenth,  and  nineteenth  centuries.  Muti- 
lated fragments  recovered  by  excavations,  or  found  in  the 
palaces  of  impecunious  old  families,  brought  fabulous 
prices ;  and  many  of  them  encumber  to  this  day,  not 
only  the  stately  mansions  of  England,  but  some  public 
museums  on  the  Continent.  It  is  not  strange  that  Italian 
dealers,  whose  finesse  in  their  own  arts  is  unequalled,  im- 
posed many  things  on  the  stranger  which  they  could  not 
sell  at  home,  and  that  the  manufacture  of  antiques,  in 
whole  or  in  part,  became  a  much-practised  art. 

The  records  of  the  statues  and  busts  of  Julius  Caesar 
to  be  found  in  Great  Britain  seem  to  be  all  by  foreign 
writers.  Adolf  Michaelis's  Ancient  Marbles  of  Great 
Britain,  the  latest  and  fullest  guide,  is  a  German  work 
translated  into  English  in  1882.  Bernoulli  had  pre- 
viously, by  inquiry  rather  than  exploration,  made  notes 
of  the  works  hid  away  in  manorial  houses.  Still  earlier, 
Count  de  Clarac,  an  officially  employed  French  author, 

163 


164      PORTRAITURES    OF   JULIUS   C^SAR 


had  visited  England  to  see  and  to  illustrate  its  antique 
statues  only.  Busts  and  reliefs  were  not  within  the  scope 
of  his  Musee  de  Sculptures  and  its  superb  outline  en- 
gravings. Bernoulli  illustrates  but  one  Julius  Caesar  in 
Great  Britain,  the  bust  of  the  British  Museum;  Michaelis 
not  any.  As  the  latter  author  visited  a  number  of 
private  collections  in  various  parts  of  England  which  I 
was  unable  to  see,  and  was  painstaking  and  considerate  in 
his  judgments,  I  avail  myself  of  his  descriptions  of  such 
works. 

LONDON 

No.    64.    [B.    43].     British    Museum,    London,   Roman 
Gallery.     This  is  a  life-size  white  marble   head   and   neck 

of  Caesar,  essentially  different 
from  all  other  busts,  and  yet 
with  the  characteristic  fea- 
tures of  the  Caesar  face  so 
unmistakably  modelled  that, 
after  a  study  of  it,  confidence 
in  its  authenticity  grows,  and 
little  doubt  remains  that  it 
was  made  to  represent  him. 
It  was  bought  in  Italy  for  the 
British  Museum  in  1818.  In 
a  modern  work  by  Friederichs 
and  Walters,  entitled  Mou- 
lacjes  de  Berlin,  it  is  stated  to 
FIG.  46  have  been  in  the  Ludivisi  col- 


PLATE   XXXIII 


JULIUS  CJSSAR  :   OF  THE  ROMAN  GALLERY,  BRITISH  MUSEUM 


BRITISH    MUSEUM  165 

lection  in  1637.  Bernoulli  concedes  it  to  be  an  antique.  The 
plate  facing  the  preceding  page  is  made  from  a  photograph 
of  my  plaster-cast  copy.  The  profile  is  reduced  from  the 
engraving  in  Fronde's  Sketch  of  the  Life  of  Julius  Ccesar. 

Among  English-speaking  peoples  this  bust  is  become 
more  widely  known  than  any  other.  It  forms  the  frontis- 
piece of  Froude's  Sketch  of  the  Life  of  Julius  Ccesar. 
It  is  discussed  at  much  length  and  illustrated  by  S.  Bar- 
ing-Gould in  his  book  entitled  The  Tragedy  of  the 
Ccesars.  It  is  reproduced  in  a  recent  most  scholarly 
work  by  Thomas  Rice  Holmes  on  Caesar's  Conquest  of 
Gaul,  where  its  claims  to  antiquity  are  reviewed,  and  its 
author  eloquently  describes  its  superiority.  It  is  also  one 
of  the  illustrations  of  W.  Warde  Fowler's  Life  of  Julius 
Ccesar,  in  Putnam's  series  of  The  World's  Heroes.  In 
short,  it  has  become  England's  Julius  Caesar.  It  comes 
out  of  mediaeval  darkness  into  the  modern  world  to  repre- 
sent, better  than  most  of  the  others,  the  combined  power, 
dignity,  and  sweetness  of  his  character.  It  holds  a  place 
of  honour  in  the  British  Museum  at  a  time  when  English 
historians  have  been  sifting  ancient  Latin  literature  to 
winnow  venerable  lies  and  idle  gossip  concerning  Julius 
Caesar  out  of  readers'  minds,  and  to  lift  him  to  the 
highest  pedestal  of  human  greatness. 

As  many  Italian  busts,  both  antique  and  mediaeval, 
represent  Julius  Caesar  according  to  a  Roman  ideal  of  a 
highly  executive  human-brute  force  ("Caesar  as  Mars,"  in 
the  Louvre,  for  example),  this  British  Museum  bust,  on 
the  other  hand,  shows  us  a  face  on  which  we  see  alertness 


166      PORTRAITURES   OF   JULIUS   CAESAR 

of   mind,  culture,  refinement,  the   statesman's   power,   and 
the  latent  electric  energy  of   his  military  career. 

T.  Rice  Holmes,  in  the  great  work  just  referred  to,  pref- 
aces it  with  a  chapter  on  "  The  Busts  of  Julius  Caesar," 
at  the  conclusion  of  which  he  warms  into  an  unwonted 
enthusiasm  over  this  bust,  as  follows :  "  This  bust  repre- 
sents, I  venture  to  say,  the  strongest  personality  that  has 
ever  lived,  the  strongest  which  poet  or  historian,  painter 
or  sculptor,  has  ever  portrayed.  In  the  profile  it  is  im- 
possible to  detect  a  flaw ;  if  there  is  one  in  full  face  it 
is  the  narrowness  of  the  forehead  as  compared  with  the 
breadth  of  the  skull.  The  face  appears  that  of  a  man 
in  late  middle  age.  He  has  lived  every  day  of  his  life, 
and  he  is  beginning  to  weary  of  the  strain ;  but  every 
faculty  retains  its  fullest  vigour.  The  harmony  of  the 
nature  is  as  impressive  as  its  strength.  No  one  charac- 
teristic dominates  the  rest.  No  less  remarkable  than  the 
power  of  the  countenance  are  its  delicacy  and  fastidious 
refinement.  The  man  looks  perfectly  unscrupulous ;  or, 
if  the  phrase  be  apt  to  mislead,  he  looks  as  if  no  scruple 
could  make  him  falter  in  pursuit  of  his  aim ;  but  his 
conduct  is  governed  by  principle.  Passion,  without  which 
it  can  be  truly  said  there  can  be  no  genius,  inspires  his 
resolve  and  stimulates  its  execution ;  but  passion  in  the 
narrow  sense  is  never  suffered  to  warp  his  action.  He  is 
kindly  and  tolerant,  but  to  avoid  greater  ills  he  would 
shed  blood  without  remorse.  'The  mild  but  inexorable 
yoke  of  Caesar '  —  so  Mr.  Strachan  Davidson  describes  the 
ascendency  to  which  Cicero  reluctantly  submitted ;  and 


BRITISH    MUSEUM  167 

mild  inexorability  is  apparent  in  the  expression  of  this 
man.  He  can  be  a  charming  companion  to  men ;  and, 
though  he  is  no  longer  young,  he  knows  how  to  win  the 
love  of  women.  .  .  .  The  bust  represents  a  man  of  the 
world  in  the  fullest  meaning  of  the  term.  It  alone  repre- 
sents a  man  such  as  Caesar  has  revealed  himself  in  his 
writings,  and  as  his  contemporaries  have  revealed  him  in 
theirs,  and  that  is  why  I  have  chosen  it  to  illustrate  this 
book."  l 

The  bust  has  one  decided  fault.  The  forehead  is  not 
Caesar's  forehead.  It  differs  from  the  descriptions  of 
writers  of  his  time  who  mention  the  bulge  of  it  above 
the  middle  wrinkles  —  a  form  which  some  of  the  coins 
and  nearly  all  the  recognized  antique  statues  and  busts 
give.  Its  backward  slope,  its  somewhat  commonplace 
smoothness  and  narrowness,  swelling  into  a  prodigious 
width  of  the  head  above  and  back  of  the  ears,  are  all 
out  of  keeping  with  the  mass  of  authority  concerning 
Caesar's  head.  That  he  had  both  a  long  and  a  broad 
head  is  sure,  but  not  in  the  fashion  of  this  bust.  Yet 
the  general  expression  of  Caesar's  attributes  in  the  face 
and  the  characteristic  features  are  so  admirably  rendered 
that  it  is  entitled  to  the  honours  it  has  received.  I 
must  not  omit  to  state  that  the  point  of  the  nose  was  muti- 
lated and  repointed  with  plaster ;  but  the  last  time  I  saw 
it  the  plaster  point  had  been  broken  off  accidentally  or 
intentionally,  relieving  it  of  the  Israelitish  look  that  it 
once  had.  The  attention  of  the  reader  is  called  to  the 

1  Ccesar's  Conquest  of  Gaul,  Macmillan  &  Co.,  London,  1899. 


168      PORTRAITURES    OF   JULIUS   CLESAR 

plate  at  the   head  of   this   chapter  for   standards  of    com- 
parison. 

No.  65.  British  Museum.  A  black  basalt,  half  life- 
size,  on  a  bracket  in  third  Grceco-Roman  room,  marked 
"  Roman  Portrait,  probably  Julius  Caesar,  found  in  Egypt." 
It  is  a  rude  piece  of  work  that  may  have  been  executed 
by  some  sculptor's  apprentice  anywhere  that  basalt  was 
at  hand.  The  shape  of  head  and  features  resemble  the 
conventional  Julius  Caesar.  The  ears  are  set  quite  too  far 
forward  —  a  mistake  that  would  not  be  made  by  a  compe- 
tent sculptor.  The  cheeks  and  their  lines  are  not  specially 
characteristic.  The  position  given  it  in  the  British  Mu- 
seum is  its  only  claim  to  be  numbered.  It  is  not  worthy 
of  its  place  there. 

No.  66.  British  Museum.  A  life-size  alto-relievo 
medallion,  hung  high  up  on  the  west  end  wall  of  the 
Roman  gallery,  in  a  very  bad  light.  It  is  described  in 
the  Synopsis  of  the  Contents  of  the  British  Museum, 
edition  of  1874,  as  a  "  medallion  representing  in  pro- 
file the  bust  of  an  unknown  personage,  who  is  bald  over 
the  forehead,  and  has  his  beard  closely  shaven.  A  tunic 
covers  his  breast  and  shoulders,  and  a  folded  mantle 
hangs  over  his  left  shoulder.  The  countenance  is  expres- 
sive of  serenity  and  benevolence.  Height  2  ft.  5  in., 
width  2  ft.  1  in.  Purchased  from  a  palace  in  Florence  in 
1771.  Museum  of  Marbles,  Vol.  X,  plate  57.  T." 

This   medallion   impresses   me   as    intended  for   Julius 


BRITISH    MUSEUM  169 

Caesar,  and  is  a  fine  work,  deserving  a  better  place  and  bet- 
ter light.  As  now  hung  it  cannot  be  intelligently  judged. 
If  those  who  placed  it  there  had  wished  to  conceal  it 
altogether,  they  could  not  have  succeeded  much  better. 

No.  67.  British  Museum.  This  is  a  companion-piece 
to  the  foregoing,  evidently  intended  for  the  same  person, 
hung  just  as  high,  and  in  as  bad  a  light,  at  the  opposite 
end  of  the  same  gallery.  The  following  extract  from  the 
Synopsis  is  its  museum  history :  "  Thought  by  Mr. 
Hawkins  (Musee  Marbles,  X,  p.  140)  to  be  an  ancient 
copy  from  the  same  original,  but  executed  in  a  more 
recent  period  than  the  other  medallion.  Mr.  Hawkins 
thinks  the  person  represented  is  a  Greek  philosopher,  but 
the  costume  and  general  character  of  the  countenance  of 
both  these  heads  seem  rather  Roman  of  the  Augustan 
age  than  Greek.  This  medallion  was  brought  to  England 
by  Sir  William  Stanhope,  from  whom  it  was  obtained  by 
Mr.  Townle." 

I  number  it  after  the  preceding,  as  a  candidate  for  a 
place  among  the  portraitures. 

British  Museum  Gems  and  Coins 

The  old  Roman  coins  with  heads  of  Julius  Csesar  in 
the  British  Museum  seem  so  nearly  duplicates  of  those 
already  figured  from  Naples  and  Paris  that  it  is  needless 
to  repeat  all  of  them  ;  but  on  Figure  47  I  give  four  which 
are  characteristically  different  from  each  other,  though  with 
common  traits  of  cheeks,  chin,  and  neck. 


170      PORTRAITURES    OF   JULIUS    CESAR 

Of  the  gems  in  the  Gem  Room,  two  intaglios  of  sar- 
donyx, in  case  No.  46,  are  supposed  to  represent  Julius 
Caesar.  One  is  inscribed  in  Greek,  Diorkuridon,  and  the 
other  Dioskoridos.  These  are  shown  at  the  top  of  Plate 
XXXIV.  They  are  considered  of  great  value,  but  their 
value  does  not  reside  in  their  excellence  as  portraitures. 
They  are  marvels  of  the  exquisite  finish  of  ancient  art  in  the 
cutting  of  miniature  heads  on  gems.  Only  by  a  magnifying 
glass  can  one  realize  the  delicate  modulation  of  the  facial 
muscles.  Our  engravings  are  just  double  the  size  of  the 
originals.  The  three  shown  below  on  the  same  plate  are  in 
cases  46  and  53.  They  are  not  named  in  the  catalogue  as 
Julius  Caesars,  but  I  believe  them  to  be.  The  most  youthful 
resembles  the  head  of  the  Hermes  in  the  Louvre,  our  No.  49. 
The  following  engraving  is  of  four  Caesar  coins  selected 
from  the  casts  of  the  British  Museum,  most  kindly  furnished 


FIG.  47 

me  by  the  gentleman  in  charge  of  the  coins  and  gems.  As 
works  of  the  die-cutter's  art  in  portraiture  they  are  bad,  as 
usual,  but  are  well-preserved  specimens  of  very  old  coins. 

No.    68.     Kensington  Museum.     A  huge  head  labelled 
"  Julius  Caesar,  in  Luna  marble :    Roman ;    middle  of  first 


PLATE  XXXIV 


COPIES  OF  GEMS  IN  BRITISH  MUSEUM,  SURMISED  TO  BE  OF 
JULIUS  CAESAR.     DOUBLE  THE  REAL  SIZE 


BRITISH    MUSEUM 


171 


century  before  Christ."  "  Lent  by  George  Nugent  Banks, 
Esq."  This  over-sized  head  is  remarkable  both  for  its 
resemblance  to  Caesar  types,  and  for  its  variations  from 
them.  The  sketch  I  took  of  it  (Fig.  48)  shows  quite  its 
best  side.  Other  views  exhibit  the  head  and  neck  so  dis- 
proportionately large  that  it  is  difficult  to  believe  it  an 


FIG.  48 


antique,  or  anything  more  than  a  composite  work  of  the 
Renaissance  period.  I  made  an  effort  to  get  information 
concerning  it  from  its  owner,  but  without  success.  As  it 
is  given  a  place  and  name  in  a  great  English  museum, 
I  herewith  assign  it  a  number. 

No.  69.    [B.    44].     Bust   in   Wilton   House,   Wiltshire, 
from  the  Valetta   collection  of   Naples.      Bernoulli  alludes 


172      PORTRAITURES   OF   JULIUS   C^SAR 

to    it    as    resembling    No.    282    of    the    Gallery  of    Busts, 
Vatican  (our  No.  5),  with  smaller  mouth. 

No.  70.  [B.  45].  Ince-Blundell  Hall,  Lancashire. 
Bernoulli  admits  this  doubtingly  to  his  list,  thus :  "  This 
head,  with  powerful  straight  nose  and  fairly  thin  cheeks, 
recalls  Augustus  rather  than  Julius,  but  has  eyes  too  hollow 
and  hair  too  thin.  Bust  completely  preserved,  but  of  doubt- 
ful genuineness." 


No.  71.  [B.  46].  Also  in  Ince-Blundell  Hall.  A 
porphyry  bust  which  Bernoulli  numbers  on  the  strength  of 
Michaelis's  notice  of  it,  remarking  nevertheless,  "  but  has 
no  resemblance  to  the  Caesar  types." 

No.  72.  [B.  47].  Woburn  Abbey.  A  life-size  bust,  said 
to  resemble  one  of  the  busts  formerly  in  the  Roman  gallery 
of  the  Louvre,  now  withdrawn  to  the  "  Magasins " ! 
Bernoulli  pronounces  it  modern. 

No.  73.  [B.  48].  Cambridge,  Fitz-William  collection. 
"  A  piece  of  an  antique  ornament  of  a  pilaster,  on  the  back 
of  which  is  introduced  a  modern  head  of  Julius  Caesar,  seen 
in  profile  with  a  fillet  in  the  hair.  Bought  of  a  merchant  in 
Naples  about  the  year  1755  by  Hollis."  Michaelis,  p.  266. 

No.  74.  In  the  Crystal  Palace  of  Sydenham,  near 
London,  in  the  "  Roman  Court "  of  plaster  casts,  is  a 
more  than  life-size  statue  marked :  "  A  Roman,  veiled  with 


PLATE  XXXV 


A  ROMAN  IN  THE  ACT  OF  SACRIFICING  :  VATICAN.    A  POSSIBLE  JULIUS  G&.SA.R 


OUT    OF    LONDON  173 

the  toga,  in  the  act  of  sacrificing.  From  the  Vatican."  I 
was  astonished  that  I  had  failed  to  see  it  in  the  Vatican  ; 
possibly  because  it  does  not  appear  on  the  catalogue  as  a 
Julius  Caesar.  Seen  in  the  excellent  light  of  the  Crystal 
Palace,  it  impressed  me  very  decidedly  as  likely  to  have  been 
intended  to  suggest  him.  Yet  it  is  distinctly  different  from 
others.  The  great  fulness  and  size  of  the  forehead  would 
have  suggested  the  allusion,  in  the  play  of  Julius  Ccesar,  to 
"  broad-browed  Caesar "  ;  if  the  writer  of  that  play  were 
Francis  Bacon,  for  he  may  have  seen  it  in  Rome,  as  Shake- 
speare surely  did  not.  As  Bernoulli  makes  no  mention  of 
it  among  the  Caesars  to  be  found  in  Rome,  I  infer  that  the 
great  iconographists  of  Italy  have  found  it  wanting  in  either 
antiquity  or  resemblance,  and  therefore  have  not  catalogued 
it  as  a  possible  Caesar.  But  even  experts  are  not  infallible. 
One  of  the  arguments  advanced  by  Bernoulli  for  Caesar- 
identification  of  other  busts  and  statues  is  that  when  the 
work  is  about  of  Caesar's  time,  and  no  positive  resemblance 
exists  to  well-known  portraitures  of  other  celebrated 
Romans  of  that  epoch,  those  bearing  marked  resemblance 
to  well-known  traits  of  Julius  Caesar  may  with  fairness  be 
classed  as  Caesars,  unless  thrown  out  for  patent  disresem- 
blance  in  general.  This  fine  statue  may,  therefore,  have 
that  claim.  It  can  probably  be  better  studied  in  the  plaster 
cast,  and  in  the  fine  light  of  the  Crystal  Palace,  than  in  its 
place  in  the  Vatican. 

No.  00.     Knoll,  Seven  Oaks,  near  London,  the  seat  of 
Lord   Sackville.     A  venerable-looking  marble  head,  heroic 


174      PORTRAITURES    OF   JULIUS   CESAR 

size,  is  here  shown  as  Julius  Caesar,  and  as  "  one  of  the  heir- 
looms of  the  family."  It  is  clearly  one  of  those  "job-lot" 
Roman  Emperors  got  up  in  late  centuries  in  Italy  to  personate 
some  one  of  them,  as  called  for.  It  was  brought  from  Italy 
by  the  Duke  of  Dorset  about  1620.  It  is  of  no  value  as  a 
portraiture,  and  therefore  not  numbered. 

No.  75  to  80.  At  Lowther  Castle,  Westmoreland, 
Michaelis  enumerates  five  possible  Julius  Caesars  —  "No.  11, 
Julius  Caesar,  a  sitting  statue  in  a  consular  chair,  from  the 
Bessborough  collection."  Also  Numbers  28,  29,  and  69,  all 
supposed  to  personate  Julius  Caesar.  I  was  not  able  to  find 
in  the  British  Library  any  description  or  engravings  of  these 
works,  and  letters  of  inquiry  for  information  or  photographs 
to  the  steward  of  the  castle  failed  to  elicit  a  reply.  I 
regret  thus  to  be  unable  to  present  illustrations  of  works 
that  may  be  of  value  in  that  collection,  and  that  any  busts 
of  Julius  Caesar,  if  of  real  value,  should  be  hid  away  in 
remote  private  collections  anywhere.  Without  a  letter  of 
presentation  bearing  a  distinguished  name,  the  student  seek- 
ing information  of  art  treasures  in  these  manorial  houses  has 
but  scant  courtesy. 

No.  81.  [B.  49-50].  Edinburgh,  Antiquarian  Museum. 
Through  the  politeness  of  Professor  J.  Anderson,  director,  I 
have  secured  photographs  of  this  life-size  marble  bust  (Plate 
XXXVI),  and  find  that  it  is  of  the  Ludivisi  bronze  type  (our 
No.  13,  B.  11),  and  partakes  of  its  faults.  It  is  reputed 
to  have  come  from  the  Hadrian  Villa  near  Rome,  and  to 


PLATE   XXXVI 


JULIUS   C.ESAR,    OF   THE    ANTIQUARIAN    MUSEUM,    EDINBURGH 


EDINBURGH  175 

• 

have  been  purchased  from  the  Casali  collection  of  Rome  by 
"  the  late  General  Ramsey."  I  believe  it  to  be  the  original 
Casali  bust,  to  which  Bernoulli  and  older  writers  allude. 
(See  our  No.  15.)  It  was  formerly  in  the  collection  of  Lord 
Murray  in  Edinburgh.  It  belongs  to  a  group  of  busts  pos- 
sibly intended  for  Julius  Caesar,  which  I  believe  to  be 
impediments  rather  than  helps  to  the  study  of  his  head.  It 
is  unfortunate  that  Edinburgh,  one  of  the  intellectual  centres 
of  the  world,  should  set  before  its  students  this  doubtful, 
this  perniciously  misleading,  type  of  portraiture  of  Julius 
Caesar. 


RUSSIA 

ST.    PETERSBURG 

Nos.  82,  83,  84.  [B.  58,  59,  60].  Two  busts  of  Julius 
Caesar  are  in  the  great  Hermitage  collection,  and  a  statue 
is  credited  to  the  private  collection  of  A.  de  Montferrard, 
deceased,  architect  of  the  Winter  Palace.  The  two  former 
I  saw,  but  failed  to  study  and  take  notes  of  them,  or  to 
sketch  them,  supposing  I  should  return  to  do  so,  and  also 
that  I  should  readily  find  good  photographs  of  them,  as  one 
does  in  the  museums  of  other  capitals.  Too  late  I  found 
that  no  photographs  could  be  procured  of  them,  and  that 
sketching  in  the  galleries  was  forbidden.  As  descriptions 
are  of  small  value  without  correct  pictures,  whatever  value 
the  busts  in  the  magnificent  Hermitage  collection  may  have 
is  practically  hid  from  the  students  of  the  world  outside  of 
St.  Petersburg.  The  few  lines  which  Bernoulli  gives  to 
these  busts  is  probably  by  reason  of  the  same  lack  of  data 
withheld  by  the  management.  One  of  them  is  said  by  him 
to  resemble  the  Naples  bust ;  the  other  to  be  from  the  Cam- 
pagna  collection  of  Rome ;  and  the  Montferrard  statue  to  be 
of  Hadrian's  time.  The  latter  is  alluded  to  in  the  Berlin 
Archaologische  Zeitung  of  August,  1852,  p.  187,  which  con- 
tains no  engraving  of  it,  or  other  information  than  that 
it  is  of  Hadrian's  time.  That  the  managers  of  the  antiques 

176 


ST.  PETERSBURG  177 

in  the  Hermitage  of  St.  Petersburg  should  seek  to  conceal 
a  knowledge  of  their  own  treasures,  from  art  students,  so 
that  even  after  the  journey  to  their  capital  no  souvenirs  like 
sketches  or  photographs  may  be  brought  away,  is  a  kind  of 
Chinese  exclusiveness  little  in  harmony  with  the  catholic 
spirit  of  the  civilization  around  them. 

While  travelling  in  Algeria  and  Tunisia,  I  made  in- 
quiries for  Roman  antiques  that  I  supposed  might  have 
been  found  in  North  Africa  during  the  period  of  the  French 
occupation,  but  I  discovered  none  that  related  to  Julius 
Caesar.  Making  the  short  excursion  from  Tunis  to  Carthage, 
I  found  on  the  exquisitely  beautiful  site  of  the  buried  city, 
then  green  with  crops,  that  a  religious  society  had  erected  a 
votive  church,  and  Pere  Delatre  had  superintended  excava- 
tions in  the  old  ruins.  A  little  museum  was  there  to  show 
the  finds,  mostly  of  little  interest.  One  very  diminutive 
bronze  head  had  been  found,  corroded  by  ages  of  contact 
with  earth,  which  I  was  told  has  been  described  in  some 
archaeological  journal  as  a  possible  Julius  Caesar.  I  examined 
it  with  interest,  and  afterward  procured  a  plaster  copy  of 
it.  It  proved  to  be  an  Augustus,  instead  of  a  Julius. 


THE   UNITED   STATES 

While  the  author  was  engaged  in  seeking  the  portrai- 
tures of  Julius  Caesar  in  Europe  from  1897  to  1901,  mention 
was  made  to  him  first,  it  is  believed,  by  Signor  Lanciani  in 
Rome,  and  afterward  in  England,  of  "  an  American  "  who 
had  recently  published  an  illustrated  article  in  Scribner's 
Magazine  containing  a  greater  number  of  heads  of  our 
subject  than  had  before  been  illustrated  together.  I  was 
informed  that  it  might  be  found  in  some  number  of  the 
magazine  for  the  year  1897.  I  searched  for  it  in  the 
BibUotlieque  Nationals  of  Paris,  and  then  in  the  British 
Museum,  looking  through  all  the  numbers  of  1897  without 
finding  it.  Not  until  I  had  returned  to  New  York  in  1901 
did  I  learn  at  the  office  of  Scribners  Magazine  that  the 
article  sought  was  published  in  1887  instead  of  1897.  It 
was  by  John  C.  Ropes  of  Boston,  and  was  undoubtedly  at 
the  time  of  its  publication  the  largest  collection  of  Julius 
Caesar  heads  ever  illustrated  together.  It  would  have  been 
a  delight  to  me,  and  a  great  economy  of  time  in  my  search, 
if  I  could  have  had  that  fruit  of  his  study  at  the  time 
when  my  own  enthusiasm  was  being  similarly  awakened. 
Unfortunately  the  error  of  my  informant  as  to  the  year  of 
the  magazine  containing  it  left  me  to  travel  on  the  same 
road  alone.  However,  I  was  not  long  in  discovering  that  Pro- 
fessor Bernoulli  of  Basle  was  a  comprehensive  and  learned 

178 


THE   UNITED    STATES 


179 


guide  in  this  study ;  one  too  thoughtful  and  scholarly  not 
to  follow  with  respect.  Thus  I  completed  this  work  without 
knowledge  of  Mr.  Ropes's  preceding  study.  If  my  work  has 
been  less  rapid  by  reason  of  this  ignorance,  it  may,  on  the 
other  hand,  have  gained  by  the  greater  time  I  have  been  forced 
to  give  to  the  work,  and  the  riper  independence  of  judgment 
that  may  result  from  wider  range  of  study. 

Naturally  it  is  not  to  be  assumed  that  antique  or 
imitation-antique  busts  or  heads  of  Julius  Caesar  are  to  be 
found  in  the  United  States. 
Nevertheless,  before  returning 
to  America  I  directed  let- 
ters to  the  conservators  and 
librarians  of  every  college  or 
library  in  the  country  where 
it  was  thought  such  antiques 
or  imitations  might  be  found. 
So  many  rich  and  curious 
and  scholarly  Americans  have 
been  disposed  to  acquire  treas- 
ures of  art  in  their  travels 
in  Europe  that  it  will  not 
be  surprising  if  among  them 
may  be  found  some  interest- 
ing Caesars.  However,  the 
numerous  letters  from  college  arid  library  officials  informed 
me  not  of  one.  For  any  in  private  collections  there  is  no 
key  to  inquiry.  Plate  XV  of  Mr.  Ropes's  article  in  Scribner's 
Magazine  of  February,  1887,  gives  a  cut  of  the  head  and 


FIG.  49 


180      PORTRAITURES   OF   JULIUS   C^SAR 

neck,  actual  size  (three  inches  high),  of  a  bust  owned  by 
General  Henry  L.  Abbott  of  the  Corps  of  Engineers  of  the 
United  States  Army,  acquired  in  Naples  by  his  father  in 
1812,  and  said  to  be  from  the  excavations  of  Herculaneum. 
By  permission  of  General  Abbott  and  of  Messrs.  Scribner, 
the  engraving  is  here  reproduced  (Fig.  49).  It  is  a  very 
strong  face.  It  is  certainly  not  a  copy,  and  bears  no  close 
resemblance  to  any  preceding  plate,  cut,  or  sketch.  The 
engraving  does  not  convince  me  that  it  is  intended  for 
Julius  Caesar.  An  examination  of  the  original  may  furnish 
more  evidence  of  its  resemblance.  The  great  strength  of 
character  stamped  upon  it,  and  the  chaplet  of  bay  leaves 
on  the  head,  however,  make  one  open-minded  to  evidence 
that  it  may  be  indeed  a  veritable  antique  intended  for  our 
hero.  I  hope  yet  to  see  it. 

I  heard  of  another  supposed  antique  head  of  Julius 
Caesar  through  Professor  George  N.  Olcott  of  Columbia 
University,  which  is  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  S.  Hudson 
Chapman  of  Philadelphia.  After  a  correspondence  with 
him  I  was  promised  a  photograph  of  his  marble ;  but  it 
has  failed  to  arrive.  The  following  is  Mr.  Chapman's 
description  of  it  in  a  letter  to  me  dated  April  7th,  1902. 

"  The  marble  head  of  Julius  Caesar  which  I  own  I 
bought,  in  1885,  in  Europe.  It  had  just  been  found  in 
Rome,  and  when  I  bought  it  was  unidentified,  and  one 
side  was  covered  with  mortar,  showing  it  had  been  used  as 
a  building  stone.  I  invited  Professor  Lanciani  to  see  it 
when  he  was  here  about  ten  years  ago,  and  he  exclaimed, 
'It  is  the  finest  portrait  head  I  have  ever  seen/  &c.  The 


THE    UNITED    STATES  181 

modelling  of  the  face  is  splendid  and  characteristic.  It 
is  probably  the  youngest  portrait  known  resembling  him 
(as  Pontifex  Maximus),  as,  though  it  has  no  veil,  it  shows 
traces  of  having  had  one  in  bronze." 

I  regret  that  I  have  been  unable  to  procure  a  photograph 
of  what,  from  the  above  description,  ought  to  be  a  very 
interesting  candidate  for  identification. 

If  this  work  be  received  with  sufficient  favor  to  warrant 
another  edition,  the  author  hopes  that,  not  only  from  the 
old  fields  of  Europe,  but  from  the  choice  selections  which 
have  found  their  way  to  the  United  States,  some  valuable 
additions  may  be  made  to  the  varied  illustrations  which  the 
present  volume  contains. 

After  all  the  time  and  travel  devoted  to  the  illustration 
of  this  subject,  I  am  aware  that  I  may  have  failed  to  find, 
and  to  illustrate,  some  valuable  pieces  of  bronze,  marble,  or 
gems  of  Caesar.  These  will  in  time  come  in,  and  when  all 
of  the  data  shall  have  been  gathered,  then,  if  not  already, 
the  twentieth  century  will  have  more  material  for  sculptors 
to  study  his  head  than  has  been  at  their  service  at  any 
time,  or  anywhere,  for  more  than  fifteen  hundred  years. 

I  will  close  by  avowing  two  studies  of  my  own,  modelled 
at  Nice  in  1899.  One  is  intended  to  personate  Julius  at  the 
age  of  twenty-six,  and  the  other  as  he  is  imagined  the  day 
he  went  to  the  Senate  to  his  assassination,  thirty  years  later. 
The  former  is  the  frontispiece  of  this  volume,  and  the  latter 
the  concluding  illustration.  When  I  was  modelling  them 
I  had  not  seen  the  small  bust  of  Parma,  or  the  miniature 
bronze  (No.  61)  of  the  Archaeological  Museum  of  Madrid. 


182      PORTRAITURES    OF   JULIUS    CESAR 

Nor  had  I  studied  so  thoroughly  as  I  have  since  the  Vatican 
bust  No.  107  of  the  Chiaramonti  Gallery  (our  No.  6). 
The  tremendous  concentration  of  thought  and  will  thrown 
into  the  Parma  bust  is  the  fullest  expression  of  that  side 
of  his  character,  and  not  to  have  seen  it  was  to  miss  some- 
thing essential.  But  after  all  are  seen  that  can  be  seen,  one 
feels  that  Caesar's  personality  was  more  instinct  with  the 
grace  of  conscious  power,  of  persuasive  intellectual  force, 
more  inspiring  of  confidence  in  himself,  than  any  portraitures 
handed  down  to  us  suggest.  Can  such  expression  be  given 
by  sculptors  without  losing  fidelity  to  the  real  features  ?  I 
think  it  can,  and  I  believe  that  men  of  genius,  sculptors 
living  or  in  the  future,  will  yet  give  us  Julius  Caesars  more 
to  the  life  than  any  one  work  now  in  existence. 


APPENDIX.  —  NONDESCRIPTS 

Note  on  page  108.  Whoever  has  followed  the  author  in 
reading  this  monograph  up  to  this  page  will  have  realized 
that  among  all  the  busts  and  statues,  of  whatever  age,  which 
for  any  reason  are  supposed  to  represent  Julius  Caesar,  many 
will  have  doubtful  claims.  The  dividing  line  between  some 
of  those  which  are  included  among  my  numbers,  and  those 
rejected  as  Nondescript,  and  numbered  00,  is  somewhat  shady. 
I  am  conscious  of  having  numbered  a  few  which  may  be  of 
the  Nondescript  class.  Deference  to  some  generally  accepted 
authority  handicaps  independent  judgment.  Catalogues  of 
the  great  museums  are  entitled  to  respect.  Yet  in  several 
cases  I  have  felt  constrained  to  write  of  them  as  quite  mis- 
leading. Two  cases  especially  germane  are :  One  the  Ludi- 
visi  bronze,  to  which  I  have  (inconsistently  I  admit)  given 
the  number  13,  illustrated  on  page  96,  Fig.  8 ;  and  the 
other  the  bust  in  the  Louvre,  Hall  of  the  Emperors,  Fig.  34, 
page  139,  to  which  I  have  not  assigned  a  number,  thereby 
casting  it  into  the  outer  darkness  of  the  Nondescripts.  The 
directors  of  public  museums,  in  Paris  especially,  have  put 
away  many  busts  as  unworthy  their  former  nomenclature, 
which  were  once  as  conspicuously  exhibited  and  misnamed 
as  the  one  to  which  I  have  last  alluded.  Few  persons  will, 
I  think,  question  their  last  judgment  concerning  them.  Other 
old  museums  have  need  of  the  same  kind  of  sifting  work. 


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